The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 - Finally, Bella's blood wedding

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN-PART 1 - ROBERT PATTINSON and KRISTEN STEWART — (Image credit: Andrew Cooper)

The teasing is finally over. After three films filled with yearning emotions and unfulfilled desires, love-struck human-vampire couple Bella and Edward finally get to consummate their love in the fourth instalment of the phenomenally successful Twilight saga - yet only after walking down the aisle, of course, in a verdant outdoor ceremony featuring a cameo from author Stephenie Meyer.

What follows, however, is far from wedded bliss, despite an idyllic start to the couple’s honeymoon on a remote Brazilian island. Robert Pattinson's Edward and Kristen Stewart's Bella go to bed at last and after all that chastity their rampant sex wrecks the four-poster and leaves Bella bruised and blue – and pregnant! (All of which is entirely in keeping with the series’ hysterical view of sexuality.) But what is the nature of the foetus growing rapidly inside her and will she survive its birth?

With nothing much else to do than wait while the increasingly sickly and skeletal Bella comes to term, Edward and his werewolf rival, Taylor Lautner's Jacob, are largely left to sit around looking concerned - which proves less than gripping for the uncommitted, non-Twihard viewer. The birth scene itself is gory and unnerving, and the closest the series has come so far to pure horror, but the simmering tension between vampire and werewolf clans never properly comes to the boil and and their climactic clash is over in a brief flurry of fangs and fur. What little action there is, however, is so poorly staged by new director Bill Condon that you’re actually relieved there isn’t more. Fans of the series must hope the final film, due next year, is much more full-blooded.

On general release from Friday 18th November.

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.