The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Released:  November 20^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Lionsgate

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin, Donald Sutherland

Directed by:  Francis Lawrence

Written by:  Peter Craig, Danny Strong

Personal Bias Alert:  loved the books, felt the first two movies were rushed

8.7 of 10

            The Hunger Games film series did itself a great disservice with its first two installments.  While they were slick, action-packed entertainments with a good head on their shoulders, they still were paired down too much from the books.  I grimaced when I thought what this would do to the finale, which magnifies every unsure moment and sweeping tide into a cataclysmic revolution entirely out of Katniss’s control.  The brilliance of the book series is in how neatly every little thread comes together.  The film series had dropped too many threads, ones that seem extraneous early on but were actually tiny building blocks for the finale.  This is why I understand people’s aversion to the dramatic tonal shift of the two Mockingjay installments, but the straight and narrow gaze it gains is precisely what elevates it into the upper echelon of popcorn entertainment.

            Mockingjay Part 2 finds Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) recovering physically from the attack by a mind-warped Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) but without a moment for mental healing.  The revolution led by District 13 is gaining ground, with the obstacles between themselves and President Snow (Donald Sutherland) are quickly falling away.  As usual, the tempestuous Katniss would rather be in the fight than dealing with its aftermath, so she sets off with Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin), and company to enter the final fray:  a storming of the Capital.

             Of course, President Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman) won’t let her jeopardize their carefully orchestrated rebellion, so she’s saddled with a protection team and kept behind the front lines.  Katniss’s removal from center stage is something that could alternately be frustrating or thrilling to the audience.  The Hunger Games very pointedly doesn’t follow the ‘chosen one’ narrative, continuously making it more and more obvious that Katniss is just a girl with a bow and arrow that happened to be in the right (wrong?) place at the right time.  No, she’s a pawn in a much larger game, and both parts of Mockingjay examines just how much she is used by both sides of the fight.

            This along with the series parallel themes about the influence of propaganda takes the viewer down a dismal path, examining just how revolutions start and are sustained.  War is a part of it, of course, but there’s much more sinister and damaging things afoot in Mockingjay that are easier to see when the parts are viewed together.  I attended the Mockingjay double feature for this review, where I saw Part 1 and Part 2 back-to-back.  What’s remarkable is how difficult it is to remember where one film started and the other ended.  They really are a cohesive piece, each part lesser on its own, but a grand, ambitious slice of filmmaking when taken together.

            Director Francis Lawrence keeps the film clipping along, adhering to the production company’s desire for a YA smash.  The action is crisp, clean, and occasionally brutal.  A little girl’s death in the woods is no longer a cause for mourning.  The audience and the characters have moved far beyond that, but there’s still obvious concessions made to keep the PG-13 rating.  Meaningful deaths are rarely seen, and while this takes the sting out of some moments, there’s more obvious ways that its target audience is acknowledged.  The film’s points, at times, are stated a bit too simply, and its plot is still hampered by a love triangle that seems inconsequential even to those onscreen.  And yet even this has a powerful payoff, a small moment where one path is irrevocably shut down thanks to the choices made during war.

            It would’ve been possible to tell Mockingjay in one film if the series had set itself up better for the finale, but Lionsgate wanted a blockbuster franchise, so the crazy dresses and explosions were played up instead of the agonizing decisions faced by Katniss and everyone else caught up in this world.  The first two installments moved at a break-neck pace, making a slowdown for Mockingjay necessary.  Still, there’s barely a wasted moment in Mockingjay, as what may seem like repetitive weariness is designed to wear you down.  Yes, this is a series intended for young adults, and yes, it’s supposed to be a thrilling blockbuster.  Mockingjay just wants you to be thrilled by its ideas as well as its explosions, and it does a riveting job at entertaining you with both.

Other Notes:

Ø  Throughout the two Mockingjay films, there’s several scenes where nameless foot soldiers carry out attacks against the Capital.  Waves of them are cut down so that a select few can complete the mission.  That’s a stark visual motif for the wanton way lives are used in times of war.

Ø  Few things are better than a well-used Michelle Forbes.

Ø  Let’s all take a moment and say a final goodbye to Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

Released:  November 21^st, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  Lionsgate

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Banks, Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Wright

Directed by:  Francis Lawrence

Written by:  Peter Craig, Danny Strong

Personal Bias Alert:  read and liked the book, highly invested in the series’ themes

8 of 10

            I was expecting people to be disappointed by Mockingjay Part 1.  Whereas Catching Fire can be justly criticized for rehashing the same plot formula as the first film, Mockingjay goes off in an entirely different direction, abandoning many of the staples that made people love the series.  Gone are the flamboyances of the capitol, the looming authoritarianism, and, perhaps most importantly, the feeling of Katniss versus the world.

            Mockingjay finds Panem blossoming into outright revolt, with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) being more-or-less used by the revolution’s leaders as the symbol of their movement.  She had always been a pawn to a certain extent, a young woman playing in a world much larger than she could handle, but there had always been a sense of her making choices within that world that led to the revolution.  Now, with the reveal of Cinna’s pre-made clothing plans and Plutarch’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) dogged insistence that she is the symbol they need, the vail has been pulled back to show how much Katniss had been manipulated and directed in the previous installments.  She’s revealed as just a girl, a hot-head with some archery skills who ended up in the right place at the right time.

            This breakdown of the character’s badassery is bound to be a letdown, especially in the middle of our current ‘chosen one’ wave where seemingly every hero has some preordained gift that allows them and only them to save the world.  What’s great about this change-up, really what’s great about what novel writer Suzanne Collins did, was that she made a revolution occur as it happens in our own world.  No magic, no cheats, just fed up people, some bombs, and lots of propaganda.

            The way in which media is used to sway the masses has been a continuous theme in the series, and it takes center stage in Mockingjay Part 1.  Being that this film only covers the first half of the book, it’s largely setup for what I imagine will be an action-packed Mockingjay Part 2.  To give this film some semblance of structure and, well, a point, writers Danny Strong and Peter Craig mine the books for their shockingly astute and dark portrait of revolutions and the people that make them happen.  They succeed wonderfully, using the extra time to finally let this film series catch its breath and really feel just how bad the world has gotten.

            Director Francis Lawrence earned the right to finish out the series after bringing great improvements to Catching Fire, and if anything he seems to have gotten more comfortable with the material.  I’ve always said that it’d be easy to make a hard R adaptation of these books, but Lionsgate wants a cash cow, so Lawrence’s great challenge is toning down the violence without losing the horror that goes along with it.  In Catching Fire he was able to lighten the tone with jokes about the capitol and the outrageous fellow tributes (especially Johanna).  He doesn’t have to be as concerned about the rating with Mockingjay Part 1 since there’s much less murder going on, and he embraced the opportunity to show the bleakness that permeates the books but was absent in previous films.  The color pallet is reduced to greys and blacks, the lighting is muted, and Katniss’s new home in District 13 is all military starkness.  Given what the series is heading for, this tonal shift is a necessary step.

            The new environment of District 13 means several new actors joined the lineup.  The respect this series has gained shows not only in the large pickups (I’m looking at you Julianne Moore) but in the swell of character actors that fill in the small parts.  Never underestimate the importance of making the small parts work.  A bad performance can grind a movie to a halt, but these people had the skill to step in and keep the whole thing moving smoothly. 

            The addition of Moore as District 13’s President Coin was bound to be a good thing, but it’s made even better when you realize that most of her screen time is spent with Hoffman.  These two have worked together on three previous films, and that familiarity and the sheer skill those two bring makes all their scenes delightful.  Unfortunately, these performance do highlight how uneven the main trio of Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, and Josh Hutcherson is.  I’ve always felt that Lawrence struggles with her big moments in this series, and that trend continues here.  There’s a rousing speech she’s supposed to deliver that just falls flat, especially in contrast to the evolving but effective speeches Moore delivers throughout the film.  Hemsworth finally gets to do something in this one and pulls it off extremely well, with the exception of one scene where he comes off as unnecessarily petulant.  Hutcherson gets sidelined this time around, and I think his performance would have been fine if it wasn’t hampered by some bad makeup.  Overall, the main trio still holds their own, but the rest of the cast certainly outshines them.

            I think people’s reaction to Mockingjay Part 1 is going to reveal more about what they’ve liked about the series than the actual quality of this film.  The Hunger Games has always been a well-made piece of entertainment, and Mockingjay Part 1 is no exception.  But the splitting of the last book meant that Part 1 was bound to be devoid of the intense action people have come to expect from the series, so if you’re not simultaneously invested in the characters and the series larger themes, then this one might put you to sleep.  I, for one, found these smaller moments enthralling.

            Other Notes:

Ø  The score is still a bit much.

Ø  There’s some well-handled callbacks to the previous films without being obnoxious and some decent foreshadowing of events to come.

Ø  Way to identify the building after the computers highlighted and labeled it.

Ø  I’m with Effie; jumpsuits are awful.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Released:  May 23^rd, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  Twentieth Century Fox

Starring:  Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart

Directed by:  Bryan Singer                 

Written by:  Simon Kinberg

Personal Bias Alert:  X-Men is my favorite franchise, haven’t read any of the comics, vaguely remembers watching the ‘90’s cartoon

8.5 of 10

            Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been the breakout star of the X-Men franchise from the beginning.  He was the conduit for the audience in the first film back in 2000 and served as the anchor for the rest of the trilogy.  He’s the only character to have an individual film (in fact, he has two), and of the seven films in the X-Men franchise, only “X-Men:  First Class” didn’t feature him in a starring role.  No surprise, then, that when the writers chose a time-bending storyline from the comics for the next film, they changed the time traveler from Kitty Pryde to Wolverine.

            There’s actually another good reason for making that change.  Wolverine is a survivor, a man who’s lived an inordinately long life, and because of that has endured more than the rest of them.  He sort of operates as the franchise’s observer; he experiences everything, takes on most of the pain, and lives with the memories.  It’s made him gruff and closed-off, and yet he’s managed to retain some measure of hope.  Given what he’s been through, that hope has weight, and it becomes imperative that he gets that across in “Days of Future Past.”

            At the opening, humanity has turned on the X-Men from the original trilogy and are hunting them down using robots called Sentinels.  Their only hope for survival is to send Wolverine’s consciousness back to the 1970s to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the Sentinel’s designer and inadvertently giving the humans the key to the Sentinel’s future success:  the ability to take on a mutant’s powers.

            Most of the film takes place in the flashback, with Wolverine teaming up with the cast from “First Class” to stop Mystique.  Wolverine finds everyone reeling from the events of “First Class,” none more so than Prof. Xavier (James McAvoy).  He’s boozy and petulant, despondent over the losses he’s endured.  Wolverine’s main job becomes coaxing Prof. X into becoming the man he knew and the man everyone needs.

            Casting has always been a strong suit for the X-Men franchise, particularly in “First Class.”  Here they get to pick the best of the best, with Jackman, McAvoy, Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, and Michael Fassbender as Magneto forming the central dream team.  They play off each other with ease, and the script gives them the opportunity to do some electric one-on-one scenes.  Their backing cast, many of which are listed as stars, include Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, and Halle Berry, to name a few. 

            A great cast is always exciting, but a poor script can leave you burned.  Hearing about the plot, there were so many red flags that I went into “Days of Future Past” with my guard up.  Time travel?  Mixed-trilogies cast?  Terrible title?  I didn’t see how they could pull off this seemingly bloated concept while retaining the strong character beats that has made the X-Men franchise stand out.  It got off to a rocky start with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it explanation of why Kitty had to send Wolverine back in time and the nonexistent explanation for why Kitty can do this, even though I thought her ability was to run through walls.  But once Wolverine wakes up in the ‘70s, the story settles into a nicely building arc that feels smoother than most blockbusters.  Once you buy into the central conceit, the plot holds together fairly well, and the character stuff is just as strong as it was in “X-Men” or “X2.”

            I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion with the X-Men franchise that it works so well for me due to distraction.  There’s so many characters with so many different abilities that there’s always something or someone interesting to focus on, and particularly the films with Bryan Singer at the helm are good at knowing when to jump from one thing to another.  With most blockbusters there are three or four main characters, generally all working together towards the same thing.  This makes the plot pretty linear, giving you time to note all the holes.  The X-Men films almost always involves a massive, scattered cast of characters doing all sorts of visually interesting things, so when I start to think “Hey, that didn’t make sense,” I can’t even get the thought through my head before they’ve moved on.  I’m not sure how Singer’s able to do that, but I’m sure some of the credit should also go to Editor John Ottman.

            Ottman also provided the music for the film, which is just one in a long list of smaller things that the film got right.  What I love about the music is how it changes as the characters embark on different tasks.  The jailbreak scene, featuring a great bit part by Evan Peters, has a classic heist score, while some of the large set pieces having a thundering score more reminiscent of “Inception.”  The ‘70s clothes and hair is fitting without being distracting, and the visual effects are stunning.  As always with the X-Men films, I have to give it props for mixing in some solid humor as well.

            The most surprising thing about this film is how little it did wrong.  It goes down easy and remarkably quickly.  It’s not until you leave the theater that you realize how hard it must have been to do so many things so well.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Mutant Version):

Ø  Why couldn’t the portal girl just have everyone huddle together and make a portal surrounding them so the Sentinels can’t touch them?

Ø  Why couldn’t portal girl just create a portal for them all to go through that would take them away from the Sentinels?  Just put Wolverine on a gurney and wheel him through.

Ø  Why did Magneto fling himself so haphazardly onto the train?  He normally moves at a nice controlled pace.

Other Notes (Normal Version):

Ø  I liked that there weren’t too many “Hey, it’s the ‘70s!” jokes

Ø  The scene where Prof. X enters Wolverine’s mind is great.  I love that McAvoy’s tear stain was visible in his close-up.

Ø  So in the new future, everyone’s alive.  Even if we didn’t go to war, shouldn’t someone have died of natural causes or a car crash or something?

Ø  I live in Indianapolis, IN, and with the Indy 500 going on this weekend, the movie theaters were remarkably quiet.  Hopefully, that doesn’t hurt this film’s box office.

Ø  I’ve already seen this film twice, once in 2D and once in 3D.  I preferred the 2D.  The darkened picture I got at the 3D showing made several facial expressions less clear, and I always feel like 3D blurs the fight sequences.