DVD: Breaking Wind, Unrated Director's Cut

 One of the greatest measures of a film’s success isn’t huge box office receipts or even getting big awards…it’s inspiring a parody. The Twilight series may find this a dubious distinction, however, when the tribute is as ridiculous as Breaking Wind.

Though the title implies a send-up of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1, the movie more closely follows Eclipse, beginning with the attack on Ronald (the character who was named Riley, played here by Michael Adam Hamilton) in Seattle. It is at this point, not even two minutes into the movie, viewers are treated to the first of many flatulence jokes, leading into the credits.

Cut to Bella (Heather Ann Davis) and Edward (Eric Callero), sitting in a meadow and meeting up with Bella’s grandmother, and the audience gets the first of many sex jokes. This pretty much sets up the pattern of the rest of the film. Fart joke. Penis joke. Fart joke. Big vagina joke. Fart joke. Homosexual joke. And so on. It’s definitely NOT a film for family movie night with the little kiddies.

Writer/director Craig Moss (The 41-Year-Old-Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It) apparently felt the need to add all the sex and profanity that Stephenie Meyer left out of the Twilight saga, turning ‘imprinting’ into another word for ‘masturbation,’ and giving Bella a penchant for African-American men and an allegedly huge vagina. The sex is so in-your-face (literally) that the movie is just a few orgies shy of being a porno.

Amid the sea of adolescent humor are a few worthwhile scraps. It’s amusing that the werewolf clan is (mostly) made up of overweight guys flashing their monstrous bellies with the confidence of body builders, and that they never change form once during the film. In particular, Frank Pacheco as Jacob is a weak ray of sunlight peeking through this cloudy mess.

By far, the funniest scene (and the only one to embrace the parody movie tendency to incorporate bits of other movies) involves the legend of the cold ones, and incorporates the many characters of Johnny Depp and an Avatar. Alas, those two minutes of celluloid can’t keep this train from jumping the tracks.

While keeping very close to the story of the original films, the addition of two mini Cullens (Edward and Jasper) is confusing and silly, but less offensive by far than the majority of the movie. Little Edward also plays a pivotal role in the reenactment of Breaking Dawn—Part 1 (which this movie summarizes in a lightning-fast three minutes).

The Unrated Director’s Cut DVD (Lionsgate, MSRP: $26.98) contains two featurettes and a commentary track by Moss and the cast. Surprisingly, the audio commentary is not only great, it also vastly improves the experience of the movie. It’s far more interesting to learn that Alice is played by Ashley Greene’s photo double (Alice Rietveld) in the Twilight films than it is to watch Rietveld play the part, and Davis and Callero are far more charismatic in their voice-over than on-screen. Comedian Pacheco also lives up to his reputation.

For such an embarrassing movie, the producers of Breaking Wind actually went to a great deal of trouble to maintain some authenticity, as shown in the “Behind the Scenes” featurette. From locations and wardrobe to outright shot duplications and hiring actors with uncanny resemblances to the original characters—particularly Carlisle (John Stevenson) and Charlie (Flip Schultz)—there was a concerted effort to keep true to the feel of the source material. It’s a shame, really, that there wasn’t a much better end product after going to such effort.

“The Heart Warming Embrace of Edward and Jacob” is a series of outtakes of a scene featuring Bella and her two suitors that is, to say the least, a different take on the fight between the vampire and werewolf that took place in Eclipse. There are also trailers for Disaster Movie and Scary Movie 3 included.

Although facetiously dedicated to Twihards, whom the film showcases in the end credits, Breaking Wind is offensive to both Twilight lovers and haters and is sure to be equally reviled by both. Fans of parody would be much better off watching one of the vastly superior films in the trailer gallery.

Breaking Wind is now available on DVD.

Published on LifeInLA.com