Girls of all ages have flocked the theaters and book stores to enjoy Stephanie Meyer’s latest fantastical endeavor. The latest in this McDonalds cash-cow of the art industry is “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.” Does this movie hold up to the exceptionally high standards set forth by Meyer’s previous masterpieces?

The first thing one might fault “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” for is the lackluster writing, even by the standards of the rest of the series. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” is a pure character drama about the main characters, Bella and Edward, getting married. While on their honeymoon, the two are shocked to learn that when you have unprotected sex you risk pregnancy.

The rest of the characters in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” have to work together to keep Bella alive until she can give birth while defending the fetus from a raving group of pro-choice werewolves. The term “defend,” unfortunately, here means “talk angrily and have dramatic stare offs with each other.”

The story of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” is predictable and bland. The drama is based on the question of whether or not Bella can survive and whether or not the werewolves will attack to abort Bella’s fetus. The drama is never built up, though. The problems are essentially introduced, left to stew a few scenes and then resolved.

However, even if any of the drama were developed, it would not matter. In order for drama to be successful, the audience needs to be attached to the characters. Calling the characters of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” two dimensional would be burdening them with a superfluous axis. The characters can effectively be summed up as “Mary Sue of Stephanie Meyer,” “People who love the Mary Sue of Stephanie Meyer,” and “People who still love the Mary Sue of Stephanie Meyer, but disagree with the other people who love the Mary Sue of Stephanie Meyer.”

The majority of the film features Bella on a couch talking to other people on the couch, which means one watching better enjoy exposition, because, as any English teacher will say, it is much easier to tell than to show. It does not, however, make for a better story.

There are two action scenes in the entire movie, both of which are as comprehensive as anything made by David Lynch but without the artistry. Not only did they take place in a dark, woodsy setting, there is almost no distinction between which werewolves are allies to Bella and which are not. As well, the action is too quickly shot and spread out for anything of significance to be discerned. Not that it matters, seeing as how they both fights are actually determined by secondary events outside of the fight scenes.

The actors of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” are as effective in bringing the piece to life as the cardboard cutouts advertising the film. The inflections are never right, the pantomiming is nonexistent and one could count the emotions portrayed in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” on one hand.

The only things more emotionless than the human actors are the CGI actors. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” has the effects budget one would expect from a prime time telivision show. The werewolves look so unbelievable and silly, puppets would have been improvement, and the effects used for the vampires’ powers seem like blatant copyright infringement of the ABC sci-fi series “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Overall, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” is a thoroughly unenjoyable movie. Perhaps the worst part is that it goes beyond being horrible. It is boring. Even the ironic humor one could derive from the other Twilight movies does not appear in “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.” This movie was the worst use of eight dollars in my life.