Baby makes three in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1, the fourth film based on the books by Stephenie Meyer, which brings the love story of a mortal and a vampire to a suitably bloody resolution. Like the climactic outing of Harry Potter, this final chapter of the Twilight series has been cleaved in two, with the concluding instalment due in November 2012.

There’s no credible artistic reason for the separation — the film-makers are simply milking their cash cow twice. Breaking Dawn — Part 1 stretches a 50-minute narrative into almost two hours of lustful glances, bitter recriminations and CGI-heavy battles between bloodsuckers and their werewolf rivals. Where one scene would normally suffice, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg churns out two, underscored with angst-ridden rock and pop.

Director Bill Condon’s previous film was Dreamgirls, which had plenty of razzle but no emotional dazzle. Here, he once again demonstrates a flair for style over substance.

When we left Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), she had chosen vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) over werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Jacob shows his despair by taking off his shirt in the first 20 seconds and flaunting his gym-honed abs.

Bella and Edward marry soon after in front of her parents (Billy Burke, Sarah Clarke) and his blood-sucking clan: Dr Carlisle (Peter Facinelli), Esme (Elizabeth Reaser), Alice (Ashley Greene), Rosalie (Nikki Reed), Emmett (Kellan Lutz) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone).

The newlyweds head to a private island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro to consummate their love. Bella falls pregnant during the honeymoon and a half-human, half-vampire child grows at an accelerated rate, literally devouring Bella from within.

The Quileute wolf pack led by alpha male Sam (Chaske Spencer) prepares to kill Bella and her unborn abomination. Naturally, Jacob protests and forms a splinter pack with Seth Clearwater (Booboo Stewart) and sister Leah (Julia Jones) to protect the woman he loves.

With Harry Potter consigned to the annals of movie history, tween audiences will sink their fangs into the film. Condon sates them with a succession of tasteful love scenes involving Bella and Edward and a climactic coupling that is far less brutal and bruising than the book. There are moments of unintentional hilarity including a risible imprinting sequence. The opening salvo ends with all loose threads seemingly tied and nothing to keep us counting down the days until 2012. It doesn’t bode well for Part 2.

New Orleans school teacher Will Gerard (Nicolas Cage) sees his world come crashing down when his musician wife Laura (January Jones) is robbed and sexually assaulted in Justice. The attack leaves her battered and bruised. At the hospital Will is approached by an enigmatic stranger called Simon (Guy Pearce). He offers to save the couple from a distressing trial by doling out tough justice to the rapist, if Will agrees to return the favour in the future. Six months later, Simon contacts Will to collect the debt by asking the teacher to kill a paedophile (Jason Davis). When Will refuses, Simon ups the stakes, jeopardising the teacher’s relationship with his suspicious wife and best friend Jimmy (Harold Perrineau).

Justice is a solid concept competently executed by Donaldson, who makes good use of the New Orleans locations to paint the city as a miasma of bright lights and noise. While we sympathise with Cage’s husband, we don’t share his sense of indignation, and screen chemistry with Jones is a tad chilly.

Pearce is a far better actor than he’s permitted to demonstrate here, rarely allowing emotion to register on his chiseled features. The more convoluted the narrative becomes, twisting and turning as hunters become the hunted, the quicker our interest wanes until we’re correctly guessing how the skullduggery will end based on Tannen’s unsubtle hints.