Get me to the church on time

PREVIEW REVIEW: Somebody's getting married (and it's not the Muppets)

LINKS: Breaking Dawn official Web site; take a stand with Mitt against vampires

Nobody ever asks political debate participants the really tough questions. The 2012 Republican presidential contenders held their first debate on Monday night in New Hampshire, and we still don't know what candidate and self-confessed Twilight aficionado Mitt Romney thinks of the new trailer for Breaking Dawn, Part I. Here's what I think of the new trailer: How the heck did it take them until 40 seconds in to work in a shot of a shirtless Taylor Lautner in the rain? What's up with the I'm-so-sexy supermodel chick thumpity-thumping along in her high heels to deliver a message to her leering Volturi masters? You're selling the flick to teenage girls, fellas. Making them wait 40 seconds to salivate over Taylor Lautner's cartoonishly sculpted abs is like telling 4-year-olds you have candy for them, and then it turns out to be black licorice. You're just being cruel.

Speaking of Jacob Black, he's kind of a big whiny baby, but don't you think it might be at least a little bit cool if you could just run really fast and turn into a giant wolf every time something ticked you off? Sorry I came to dinner naked, honey. I wore clothes to work, but then I didn't get a raise and I destroyed my outfit by running real fast and turning into a huge wolf. I tried to pick something up at the GAP, but they don't have any fitting rooms for enormous wolves. Half of the trailer is people getting invitations to Bella and Edward's wedding, but Jacob is the only person whose reaction is even a little bit interesting. At any rate, it's a nice day for a white wedding, but couldn't somebody have handed Bella a Kleenex? Not because she's crying. Freeze the trailer at exactly 1:09 and tell me what you think is coming out of her nose.

There's not much dialogue in the trailer, and maybe there shouldn't have been any at all. Back when Twilight first showed up in theaters, I actually gave Robert Pattinson a thumbs up for his acting, but man is that guy a block of wood. Even Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic might not have been able to sell a slab of romantic hyperbole like, "No measure of time with you would be long enough — but we'll start with forever." At least he wouldn't have sounded like he was saying it to a bowl of oatmeal, though, or a bag of grass clippings. It might have been better to just turn the whole thing over to the Dollar Store Chorus. You know, the guys in the background of every other trailer ever made (including this one) who do that rhythmic synchronized chanting that could make a stack of waffles seem dramatic. I saw something once where it sounded like they were saying "all-a-dolla, all-a-dolla," and they've been the Dollar Store Chorus, at least in my head, ever since.

Also, I know there's kind of an angry vampires tossing people around vibe in the second half of the trailer, but what's with Volturi Secretary Girl getting turned into a human boomerang by some ticked off vampire overlord? It's kind of grim, for one thing, but also how is what's-her-name remotely important enough to the story to get two solid appearances in a not-quite-two-minute trailer? Don't the filmmakers have better things to show us, like helicopter shots of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio? Ha, ha, I meant better things like Bella and Edward being terrified that they forgot to use protection when he doesn't even have a full-time job with benefits yet. Honestly, though, if there's not already a dude in Rio who owns a helicopter and does nothing but sell aerial pans of the Christ the Redeemer statue to film studios, then I need to enroll in helicopter school today.