8. The Final Fight Is A Premonition - The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
Granted, I'm not exactly
into these movies, but I was at least intrigued that the final Twilight entry might serve up the thrilling finale everyone had been hoping for since they started churning these adaptations out. A frequent point of contention for fans prior to release was how to give the final film a cinematic send-off, given that in the book it basically consists of the vampires talking things out with the Volturi, at which point they agree, walk off, and everything is pretty much fine. Even if the film is a poorly-directed mess, one sort of has to give credit to director Bill Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg for actually altering the novel's material sufficiently to fit the cinematic medium, even if the end result ultimately feels cheap. This movie gives us the bloody, brutal finale we had hoped for, in which heads are severed, beloved characters die, and the day is won, only for Condon to pull us back out of the action to reveal that this was just a premonition that Alice had demonstrated to the villainous Aro. None of this actually took place, but realising the grisly end that awaits him and his cohorts, Aro decides to leave the vamps and werewolves to it. While one can appreciate the attempt to stay true to the book while also giving viewers a brutal showdown, the pull-back reveal feels awfully lazy and cheap, at first making us gasp at how flippantly violent the action is, before disappointing with a glorified "It was all a dream" ending. Shameful.