Breaking Dawn Pt 2

For a reason I do not understand, the "midnight" show this year started at 10 pm, which was fine with me.  But it didn't seem as "buzzy" this year as last year, probably because the wedding was the big draw last year, and maybe because there's a little cognitive dissonance this year, due to the franchise ending.

I liked the movie a lot. I thought they did many things very well ~

Things moved along nicely. Of course they left things out, but they managed to hit the highlights of a very busy book.

The way they showed Bella's new sharper senses was terrific.

The love scene between Edward and new vampire Bella was gorgeously filmed - just the right amount of sexy.

The presentation of Bella's shield was very cool - I thought it would be tricky, and they pulled it off.

The big fight scene is great, and so effective, and the "reveal" at the end was wonderful, clever, unexpected, and just perfect.

The scene where Bella finally allows Edward to see her thoughts was wonderful.

The end credits were lovely, especially the last part, with the book pages.

The music was great - the score was excellent as always, and several moody songs were used to good effect.

Things I didn't love ~

The CGI baby Renesme was terrible and totally distracting. In the book, the baby is gorgeous, and this baby definitely wasn't.  I guess they were trying to make the baby look like Mackenzie Foy, but it would have been much better to just use a beautiful real child.

In the book, Bella's dress is in tatters after her first hunting trip,  In the movie, they made one tear at the hem, which was worse than nothing.  And she returns to the house with every hair in place. It would have been so fun to see her disheveled, the way it was described in the book.

I was quite disappointed in the first scene between Charlie and Bella - it's one of my favorites in the book and they left out a bunch of stuff, including Charlie's reaction to Renesmee. Also, they made it seem as if Bella was completed unaffected by Charlie's human-ness, which is not at all the way it went in the book. Like the scene at the Cullen's house between Bella and Jacob in BD Pt 1, they sucked all the emotion out of the scene, and left out many of the best lines.

In the book, Bella learns to fight and use her shield over the course of several scenes with several characters, but in the movie, it's truncated too much.  I really wish they had put just a bit more in about this - Bella becoming a warrior is so much of the fun.

Aro's reaction to Renesmee was totally over the top (weird almost hysterical laughter) and took everyone in the theater right out of the moment.

The many vampire friends are a little under-developed - several of them have no lines of dialog at all. Of course, it's the same as the book, but I had heard they were adding more back story to these characters, and they didn't. Not a major point, but I was a bit disappointed.

The movie does seem a tiny bit choppy. That may be due to cramming so much into 2 hours - as I said above, there's a lot going on in the book. But honestly, I don't think it detracts much from the entertainment value of the movie.