It’s the moment Twihards everywhere have been waiting for: the “epic conclusion” to the Twilight Saga in Breaking Dawn Part 2. If such fans are looking for all the usual token ingredients–Taylor Lautner’s naked torso, sultry shots of Robert Pattinson’s chiselled face, a fleshy Bella-Edward bedroom scene–they’re all on offer here. For a general viewer, though, how does Breaking Dawn shape up?

Plotwise, not a lot really happens. As the film opens, Bella and Edward Cullen are adjusting to their life as new parents, with Bella also becoming used to the fact she is now a ‘newborn’ - in other words, a human-turned vampire. The action builds up to a showdown between the evil vampire police, the so-called Volturi, who mistakenly believe Bella and Edward’s daughter is a destructive immortal child of legend, and the ‘good’ vampires, who know she not a threat and want to resolve the issue peacefully.

The plodding plot was but one problem I had with this film. The whole thing is set up as a complete fantasy. Not only is the extended Cullen family made up of perfect couples revelling in their perfect status, all living in apparent harmony in a perfectly-fitted out house in the forest, but the vampires appear to be able to have it all; because they live forever and don’t get tired, they can enjoy themselves as much as they want, forevermore, it would seem. For me, the flaw with this set-up is that the lives of Bella and Edward seemed completely removed from real human experience, making it very difficult to empathise with the characters and, in general, to attach much meaning to what was happening in the story.

While the indulgent visual style of the film is used well to replicate vampiric super-sensory ability, it also entailed many close-up shots of various characters, which would have been welcome had their faces been wearing anything at all resembling a genuine expression of emotion; since they weren’t, it failed to move entirely. This brings me onto my biggest issue with the film: the completely flat and uninspiring dialogue. It is very hard to engage on any level, let alone deeply sympathise, with characters merely reeling off a script entirely fabricated out of cliches. The worst-offending scenes were those feigning between the two protagonists, where, though the soundtrack tried to invoke the right mood for these ‘sweet’ moments, the accompanying speech hindered this to such an extent that all I could do was cringe.

That said, there were a couple of more enjoyable aspects. One was Michael Sheen’s scene-stealing performance as the leader of the Volturi, which stood out by virtue of his being the only character with anything really interesting to say and any liveliness of expression. Second is the “epic” showdown scene, which, though it did look like nothing more than glorified fisticuffs (with added decapitation), provided the most exciting part of the film in the form of a genuinely unexpected (for someone unfamiliar with the story) twist, prompting the only thing that came close to a moral or philosophical dilemma in the whole film.

The thing I found it hard to get away from was the fact that Twilightis essentially escapism of a vey obvious kind. Perhaps there is a longing in all of us for some romantic ideal, and for some people what the Twilight films offers is the perfect expression of that. For me, however, I found the depiction in Breaking Dawn too soppy, unrealistic and ultimately too dull to truly engage.