The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 review round-up

It looks like we won’t be able to bring you our own verdict on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 until Friday, sadly. And given how pivotal our review is to the box office performance of the film (ahem), this is clearly a significant disaster. Be brave and, er, try to cope.

Nonetheless, help is at hand. Because over in the States, the first batch of critics have been unleashed onto the film to release their verdict. And, it seems, the knives have been just a little bit sharpened.

This is a surprise. We’d have expected the presence of director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Gods And Monsters) to have given the film an added lift, but – if you believe this first batch of critics – that doesn’t appear to have been the case.

Here’s what people are saying…

Screen Daily“Focusing as it does on Bella’s pregnancy, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is lighter on action than its predecessors, and not always very convincing in its incorporation of special effects. The large wolves look persuasive when together, but markedly less so in attack, when problems of scale occur. Condon also proves a subpar director of spatial action, as a tussle between the wolves and the Cullen clan proves a jumbled mess with a shrugging emotional impact.”

The Hollywood Reporter“Breaking Dawn — Part 1 … feels as bloated and anemic as Bella becomes during her pregnancy. The film is like a crab cake with three or four bits of crab surrounded by loads of bland stuffing, but many can’t tell the difference or don’t care, which will largely be true for its captive audience.”

Variety“All the more disappointing, then, that a story so pregnant with dramatic possibilities should wind up feeling like such an unconsummated opportunity. Drawn from Stephenie Meyer’s polarizing, weirdly compelling fourth novel, the film is rich in surface pleasures but lacks any palpable sense of darkness or danger, which is a roundabout way of saying that Summit has protected its investment well.”

There’s a strong argument, of course, that the reviewers of Screen Daily, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety aren’t the target audience of the Twilight films. Nonetheless, it’s still disappointing that it sounds as though the impact of Condon hasn’t been what we’d have hoped.

We’ll reserve judgement until we see the film ourselves. And the review will be with you by the end of the week…

Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.