In order to cash in on the fact there are only four books, Breaking Dawn was split in two - a la Harry Potter - and we have Breaking Dawn Part 2 .
The big flaw in the second half is the start....it's almost as though they filmed the whole thing at once then split it in two. There is very little joining of the two films, even a 'previously' bit might have helped.
We pick up the story as Bella (Kristen Stewart) wakes as a newborn vampire much to Edward's (Robert Pattinson) delight.
They have a daughter (I always hated Renesmee as a name) who Jacob (Taylor Lautner) has imprinted upon and is therefore obsessed with, somewhat creepily.
The first 20 minutes or so is spent with Bella revelling in her newfound strength, agility and poise and we watch her child grow quickly into a 10-ish year-old probably.
It is then that Irina (Maggie Grace) sees her and wrongly believes she is an immortal child and reports this to the Volturi who set out to destroy it, setting up a confrontation with the Cullens.
After you get through the slow patch at the start, which could have been helped so much by developing Bella's newborn character - she was very well restrained when you consider how newborns have been described through the series, there are some pretty funny and well done scenes, though nothing will top the baseball scene in the first movie.
When Jacob decides to show Charlie (Billy Burke) that he is a werewolf it's hilarious, and also the obligatory scene where he gets his shirt off.
The 'friends' of the Cullens that assemble to witness to the Volturi are very well imagined from what they were described as in the book.
There's a 'twist' that is talked about that deviates from the book but I'm not sure that it is such a big twist, more an extrapolation of what might have happened had it been written about in the book...you'll know when you see it/if you have seen it.
Overall I've enjoyed the Twilight series.
It's not high art or intellectual fiction but it is enjoyable, if a little on the soppy side.
I still don't think the casting was right in places (particularly Edward) but that's just my opinion. There is a nice touch at the end of Breaking Dawn Part 2 where they go through the entire cast from the five films, as well as use the book as way of ending the story.
Considering they did it fairly rushed when Twilight became a hit I think the series was well done - it is just a shame it had to be rushed because there are things in all five movies that could have been done so much better.
As far as this film goes, a 7.5 out of 10, and that'd be about true for the series as a whole.
