Film

Games over

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Things swing back into heavy action mode for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2, a satisfying and super dark conclusion to the saga of Katniss Everdeen. I think it would be fair to deduce that this whole Hunger Games thing could’ve been a super drag without the presence of one Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. There are moments in this film, and throughout the saga, that suffer a bit from subpar writing, yet Lawrence makes any dialogue, no matter how mundane, sparkle. She’s an actress who just slices through the screen and smacks your face with her every gaze and word. This one picks up exactly where the last one left off, with Katniss getting her neck tended to after a brainwashed Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) tried to choke her out. Peeta is in a really bad place thanks to evildoer President Snow (Donald Sutherland), and he’s as reliable as a friend who dropped some really bad acid. He’s prone to spells where he wants to kill Katniss, which makes things all the more difficult as she leads Peeta and a squad of rebels on a mission to wipe out Snow for good. Peeta is on the mission despite his altered state thanks to Rebellion President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), who wants the squad to film him and Katniss for propaganda purposes. Katniss is instructed not to engage the enemy and simply film videos to inspire the rebel troops, but we all know circumstances will call for her to raise the bow and arrow and be anything but Cupid-like. Part 1 was a more laid-back affair, while this chapter amps the action up, especially in the second half. There’s an underground sequence where Katniss and friends must battle mutants that look a little like the cave creatures from The Descent. It’s during this sequence that returning director Francis

Lawrence really lets us know that Part 2 will easily be the darkest and nastiest in the whole franchise. It actually pushes the PG-13 rating to its very limit. In addition to the surprisingly high body count, Part 2 hits hard with its “don’t trust the government!” message. While we already knew President Snow is quite the scumbag, by Bob Grimm this film adds another surprising villain to the mix. Yes, all of you readers of the book knew bgrimm@ what was going to happen, but my ignorant, newsreview.com non-HG-reading ass got taken by surprise when I saw which way things were going. 3 This is the last screen performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who didn’t quite finish his role as Plutarch Heavensbee, but did enough for editors to put something convincing together. Plutarch actually takes his exit via a letter to Katniss in a surprisingly poignant move. Hoffman, even in his few scenes, commands the screen like no other. It’s such a lousy thing that he isn’t with us anymore. The most improved Hunger Games franchise performance award goes to Sutherland, who took Snow from a preening goofball in the first chapter to something deliciously villainous by the last film. Like Hoffman, Sutherland only has a few scenes, but they’re powerful ones. Snow’s last two encounters with Katniss are bone-chilling. Hutcherson does good work as twitchy Peeta, but Liam Hemsworth is bit humdrum as Gale Hawthorne, the other man after Katniss’s affections. The Hawthorne character winds up being more or less useless and disposable by the final chapter. I question whether or not the character was at all necessary. Jena Malone has a couple of good scenes as crotchety Johanna Mason, one of them with an impressive baldhead courtesy of special effects. (She apparently used a stunt head.) Her character’s hair seems to grow back awfully fast, though. So that’s it for now with The Hunger Games, although I’m sure somebody’s working hard to come up with a way to continue the franchise, just as they did with the Harry Potter universe for the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. You can’t keep a multi-billion dollar franchise down. I ultimately wound up liking this Hunger Games phenomenon after a crap start, but I am happy to see Lawrence totally free to do other things, like David O’Russell’s soon-tobe-released Joy. She’s only 25, and she’s just getting started. Ω

The bow and arrow: futuristic warfare's most sensible weapon.

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2Bridge of Spies Steven Spielberg continues a mini slump with his second good-looking yet terminally boring historical drama in a row after Lincoln. This is Spielberg’s fourth collaboration with Tom Hanks, and their first since 2004’s terrible The Terminal. It doesn’t represent a return to Catch Me if You Can and Saving Private Ryan glory. This film certainly had a lot going for it. Not only is it Spielberg’s take on spying during the 1960s Cold War, which sounds like it should be exciting, but it’s also a collaboration with the Coen Brothers. Joel and Ethan chipped in on the screenplay, which usually means good things. I wish they had directed it, too. Hanks plays James B. Donovan, a U.S. tax attorney who lands the unenviable task of representing recently captured alleged Russian spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance). While Donovan’s law firm and the courts see the whole thing as an openand-shut case, Donovan makes it known that his intentions are to represent Abel to the full extent of the law. In a parallel story, some pilots join the CIA in a new spying program with U-2 planes. One of those planes getting shot out of the sky at 70,000 feet gives the Russians their own spy prisoner in Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell). With the construction of the Berlin Wall, yet another “spy” is captured when Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), an American student who picked a crappy time to study in West Berlin, is apprehended by the East Germans. It all adds up to a rather boring time at the movies despite a typically strong Hanks performance.

1Love the Coopers This movie’s cast is jam-packed with talent. Diane Keaton, Marisa Tomei, John Goodman, Anthony Mackie, Alan Arkin, Amanda Seyfried, Ed Helms and even the voice of Steve Martin all show up in this supposed holiday film. If you are looking for a Christmas movie to add a little joy to your holiday season, this movie will not do the trick. If you are looking for something totally weird, dark and unfunny while being sort of stupid and wasteful overall, this one might please you. Coopers obviously has a lot of characters played by those performers I listed above, and a lot of plot lines to go with them. It gets a bit tiresome trying to follow all that’s going on, and I’m not going to recount everything for you. I would need this entire publication’s space to do that effectively. Well, I say effectively, but it would probably be a horribly boring description. A bunch of family members come together for the holidays and stupid stuff happens. Too many characters, not enough good zingers, and a genuinely nasty vibe make this a total waste of time for everybody.

4The Martian Ridley Scott’s latest is a fun and funny movie that represents lighter fare for the often dark director. Yes, it’s about some poor sap getting stranded on Mars but, no, aliens don’t burst from his belly after breakfast. Matt Damon spends a lot of time onscreen by himself as Mark Watney, a botanist on a mission to Mars who becomes the unfortunate recipient of a satellite dish to the gut during a storm, a violent squall that mandates the evacuation of his crew. After an attempt by his commander (Jessica Chastain) to retrieve him, the crew bugs out thinking Watney has bought the farm. (Yep … that’s a botanist pun I just dropped right there.) Watney awakens to find himself alone on the red planet with a piece of metal stuck in his gut. After another Ridley Scott directed self-surgery scene—reminiscent of that yucky self-surgery scene in Scott’s Prometheus—Watney commences survival mode. The film has fun with science facts involving things like the creation of fertilizer, the surprising need and effectiveness for duct tape and tarps on Mars, and trying to make fire out of mostly fire-retardant materials. Scott and his writers present these overtly nerdy aspects of the movie with great humor and the right amount of intelligence without making things too complicated.

3The Night Before Seth Rogen might just win the award for all-time great drug-tripping performance in this very funny holiday film from director Jonathan Levine. Rogen and Anthony Mackie play Isaac and Chris, best friends to Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who lost his parents when he was young. Since the death of Ethan’s parents, the three have gathered every Christmas Eve to celebrate together in rambunctious fashion. In what is supposed to be their final Christmas Eve journey together—Isaac is having a baby, and Chris is a famous football player—Ethan scores tickets to the wildest party of the year. Rogen spends the majority of the film tripping balls after consuming mushrooms, pot and cocaine— gifts from the wife—and he should get some sort of drug performance Oscar for what he does in this movie. Michael Shannon shows up as one of the strangest drug dealers in cinema history and, lord knows, there have been some strange ones. The film gives us the greatest gift of all with Lizzy Caplan as Ethan’s love interest because, let’s face it, she’s awesome. Miley Cyrus makes a fun cameo as herself, while somebody else who I shall not reveal makes a surprise appearance and steals some scenes. This one is a nice addition to the holiday movie canon, and Rogen solidifies himself as a stoner hero.

3The Peanuts Movie The spirit of Charles M. Schulz is ever present in this sweet, fun update of the popular comic strip that birthed some pretty cool TV specials when I was a pup. The look of the film, especially in its 3-D format, reminds me of the View-Master toy I had when I was a kid. The plot is a simple one, with Charlie Brown trying to get the attention of the Little Red-Haired Girl while his dog Snoopy fantasizes about battling his enemy, the Red Baron. Director Steve Martino captures the adorable essence of Peanuts, remaining faithful to its origins and ignoring temptations to modernize it. He’s also done a nice job of assembling the voice cast, with all of the characters sounding much like they did decades ago. (One exception: Peppermint Patty sounds way different.) The soundtrack often pays tribute to the iconic piano sounds of Vince Guaraldi, and they even get the classic Peanuts dance moves down. I watched this with a sea of kids, and they ate it up, so I imagine more will be on the way. Good to see Chuck and Snoopy getting the big screen adaptation worthy of them.

2Spectre The Daniel Craig-led James Bond movies have been a little brainier than past efforts. They’ve also been the best of the Bond films. With Craig, the franchise has dared to let genuine emotions into the mix. The series peaked with 2012’s Skyfall, directed by Sam Mendes and featuring Javier Bardem as a classic Bond villain. For the latest installment, Mendes returns, and this time out the action gets amped up. This film has some terrific set pieces, including a dizzying helicopter sequence to open things up and a nasty fight on a train. That’s what’s good about the movie. What’s bad? Actually, a good chunk of it is bad. After the full experience that was Skyfall, this one feels incomplete and shallow. During a layover in Italy—this one hops around a confusing amount—Bond finds out a few hard truths about his origins, and discovers that much of the pain he’s gone through in his last few chapters is attributable to one man. Christoph Waltz shows up (barely) as Oberhauser, a past acquaintance of Bond now leading a dark society called Spectre, responsible for terrorist attacks worldwide. Of course, Bond will get a girl along the way. This time out it’s Madeleine Swann, played by Lea Seydoux of Blue is the Warmest Color. Not only does she fall for Bond, she falls for Bond in a way that kind of makes her look like an idiot. The film underuses Waltz, and Craig gives off an impression that he might be getting tired of the gig.

5Spotlight This stands as one of the all-time great films about newspaper reporting, and the story at its center is remarkable. In 2001, Spotlight, an investigative division of the Boston Globe, gets tasked with investigating child-molesting priests. What starts as a few cases grows to near 90 criminal priests in the Boston area, none of them prosecuted. There are many performers in this film worth noting, but a special kudos goes out to Mark Ruffalo as Mike Rezendes, the real reporter who helped bring the story to the public. Ruffalo captures the spirit of a hungry reporter without resorting to clichés. His Rezendes just feels like the real thing, and there’s a moment where he loses his temper, giving Ruffalo one of the better screen moments of 2015. He’s not alone in the brilliant category. Michael Keaton is terrific as Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson, the Spotlight editor who suddenly finds himself and his staff up against a powerful Catholic Church. Rachel McAdams is totally convincing as reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, while Liev Schreiber gets his best role in years as head editor Marty Baron. The film also costars Stanley Tucci, John Slattery and Billy Crudup.