The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 - Family Movie Review

movie review rating guide for parents and families

MPAA Rating
PG-13

for disturbing images, violence, sexuality/partial nudity and some thematic elements.

Genre
Drama, Romance

Director
Bill Condon

Starring
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz

Studio
Summit Entertainment

Release Date/In Theaters
11/18/2011

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Movie Summary

Jack Sadelstein is living the perfect life, great job, pretty wife and great kids. But the thought of his twin sister, Jill, arriving for a family Thanksgiving is terrifying. Jill is needy, aggressive and difficult in every way. Adam Sandler plays both Jack and Jill.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Family Movie Review for Parents

-by Ginger

This movie is better if you have seen Twilight Saga – Eclipse and already know the characters. If you have seen Eclipse, you will have a better understanding of this family movie guide synopsis. Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part I begins with the marriage of Bella and Edward (a Vampire) at the Cullen house. It is on the honeymoon that Bella has the first clue that things are not as they would appear for the happy couple. Bella becomes pregnant, but things are not normal. She has only been pregnant for only a few days and already she looks as if she is several months along. The baby is growing so fast that it appears the baby will kill her. Edward decides to abort the baby. Bella sees things differently and tries to stop the abortion. Things are not hunky dory with this young couple and they soon get worse.

Soon the entire wolf pack finds out that Bella is pregnant. Sam, the pack leader, proclaims that Bella’s baby must not be born to protect the people. Bella and the rest of the Cullens must be killed before the baby is born. Jacob, is still in love with Bella. Jacob has a birthright to be the true alpha of the pack and forms a resistance to overthrow Sam’s pack. Jacob’s pack warns the Cullens and takes them under his pack’s protection. This is where the plot gets weird and this family movie guide refuses to give you all of the details. Bella must drink human blood (Obtained legitimately from a blood bank) to keep her vampire-human hybrid from draining her strength. That is not the weird part, this movie guide does not want to be accused of a spoiler and left it out intentionally. This is all this parental guide to the movies will say. Does Bella live? Does the baby live? To find out what happens next you will just have to go see the movie to find out.

This movie is rated PG-13 by the MPAA, but this family movie guide thinks that this is a little liberal. Although, it might be appropriate for a 13 year old, those younger than that might learn a few lessons about life that you were not ready to teach yet. First, the theme of the movie is about pregnancy and all of the facts of life that go with it. Yes, it does contain some sexually explicit material, including partial nudity. They might not have crossed the line into R, but everyone gets the idea. Does it have disturbing images and violence…absolutely. The main characters are vampires and werewolves, two species not necessarily known for their gentle ways.

Let us end this family movie guide by saying that the PG-13 rating by the MPAA has become very liberal. There are some PG-13s that would be OK for audiences that are much younger, but others are definitely not for those under 13. For these, 13 would be the absolutely low limit of the age should see the movie. This one, along with others such as the remake of Footloose, fall into this category. There are shades of PG-13 and the lines continue to blur.