the times | Friday November 21 2014
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Katniss hits a bull’s-eye The teen franchise gets darker, deeper and braver, thanks largely to Jennifer Lawrence’s talent, says Wendy Ide
tale of the foment of a rebellion that feels like padding. This is partly, although not entirely, owing to the exceptionally high quality of the cast. Jennifer Lawrence deepens and darkens the central character, Katniss Everdeen. Busted out of the shattered arena where she and her fellow
winners had been forced to slaughter each other, Katniss has found shelter in the rebel stronghold, a grim, subterranean concrete bunker in District 13. However, the warrior figurehead that the rebels had hoped for is a broken spirit, traumatised by the deaths of so many of her fellow “tributes” and by Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) not being rescued when she was. Rather than stoke the fires of rebellion, Katniss just wants to crawl off into a corner and have a good cry. It’s a wrenching performance — Lawrence doesn’t put a foot wrong. New to the series is Julianne Moore, playing District 13’s President Coin. She is fearsome and patrician, with steely grey hair and rock-solid ideals. She eyes the weepy Katniss with obvious disappointment, but her right-hand man, Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final role), urges the president to give Katniss time to step into the role of the Mockingjay, the icon of rebellion. It’s not until she sees the devastation wrought on her own district by the vengeful forces of the Capitol that we start to see a glimpse of the old Katniss, “the girl on fire”. And this is where this already gritty film becomes chillingly harrowing. Katniss finds herself dropped into the aftermath of a genocide. Her neighbours and friends have been culled in a mass execution. This is a darker film than its predecessors, both in terms of the subject matter — with its killing fields and shattered minds, this is tough viewing for its young audience — and in its look. The colour palette takes its cue from Moore’s monochrome hair; the drama unfolds in a murky underworld. There is none of the flamboyant Technicolor extravagance of the Capitol. Exhilarating action set-pieces notwithstanding — Katniss takes out two fighter planes with a single arrow — this is unusually challenging viewing for a teen franchise.
the jittery physicality of Brown’s stage performance; his knees and hip joints endure punishment in the quest for authenticity. And while he doesn’t sing (the voice is Brown’s own) the show’s dynamism is faultless. Off stage he combines the self-certainty of a man who knew he was changing music with a twitchy paranoia. Brown’s wretched backstory (drip-fed throughout the film ) meant he was fervently defensive of his success. Co-written by the British playwright Jez Butterworth, it’s a formally adventurous film, a disjointed collage in which Brown breaks the fourth wall to address the camera. At times it feels that more thought went into directorial devices than storytelling, but while the film might not fully get under Brown’s skin, it certainly gets his groove. If a movie, in its opening sequence, diagnoses its central character as a chara “malignant narcissist”, “mali likens him to Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy
and links him to the suspected murder of five women, you suspect that he’s not going to be a flowers-and-kittens guy. Not content with painting Idris Elba’s escaped convict Colin as a thoroughly bad sort, the suspense-free home-invasion movie No Good Deed has a score that assaults us with histrionic crashes and bangs. It’s the musical equivalent of a series of increasingly screamy news headlines. Colin’s victim is a stay-at-home mum (Taraji P Henson), who lets him in during a thunderstorm (both a lame plot device and a clunky piece of symbolism). The director Sam Miller tries hard to ratchet up the tension, but all the ominous orchestration and baby peril in the world is not going to rescue a film in which characterisation is boiled down to good versus evil. The Thai film Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy is based on 410 consecutive tweets from a teenager. It’s actually quite an intriguing, episodic attempt to channel a new form of communication into an old medium. The problem is that it’s far longer than a movie based on a series of 140-character statements has any right to be. Wendy Ide
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 12A, 123min
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t’s easy to be irritated by the fact that the final Hunger Games book has been split into two films. It’s a decision that with other franchises tends to be driven by avarice as much as narrative logic. Take Twilight, for example. It felt as though the final two films stretched the already meagre material to breaking point. Breaking Dawn: Part 1 was almost entirely constructed of moody slow-motion shots of Kristen Stewart moping around in her cardigan. But hey, at least they scored two sets of box-office figures rather than just one. It quickly becomes clear, however, that there is more than enough meat in the final book of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy to nourish two films. There’s not a scene in this increasingly bleak
Get On Up 12A, 139min
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No Good Deed
15, 84min
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Mary is Happy, Mary is Happy
TBC, 127min
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Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen in the third Hunger Games film
he opening shot of Get On Up — backstage, with the distant roar of anticipation thundering through the corridors — is a cliché of the musician biopic. You might recall it from Walk the Line and innumerable others. Fortunately director Tate Taylor’s electrifying portrait of James Brown rapidly takes a left turn away from formula via Brown’s colourful brush with rock bottom. The infamous incident in which the Godfather of Soul, brandishing a rifle, accused someone of using his private toilet before fleeing, pursued by armed police, is an unusual opener for a celebration of a genius. But it does capture his maverick intensity. However, the main conduit for the James Brown experience is Chadwick Boseman, pictured, who plays Brown from a dirt-poor teenager sent to prison for stealing a suit right up to the age of 63. It feels more like a spiritual possession than an impersonation. Boseman nails
film Movie Watch
To infinity and beyond We loved Interstellar as much as the next slightly dimwitted sci-fi nerd, but we’re perplexed to hear that the American cinema chain AMC Theatres is selling an “unlimited viewings” ticket to the film. Costing as much as £22 and clearly channelling the temporal loop-the-loop vibe of the movie, the ticket lets cinemagoers watch Matthew McConaughey farting around the cosmos an infinite number of times. After which — and presumably this is the point of the endeavour — you’ll be able to answer key questions such as: why didn’t the “future humans” communicate directly with Michael Caine? Did Matt Damon seriously think his plan was going to work? And how come everybody looks so healthy on a corn-only diet? No cramps, diarrhoea or dermatitis? Not a single intergalactic belch? Here, boyy — it’s time for your close-up Awards season gets into full swing as the nominations are announced today for the canine equivalent of the Oscars: the Fidos — For Incredible Dogs On Screen. It’s a particularly tight race this year, with a whole pack of stand-out pooch performances, most recently from Zora, who plays Rocco, the adorable black pitbull puppy rescued by Tom Hardy, above, from a dustbin in The Drop. Also in contention are Nicolas Cage’s canine companion in Joe and the golden retriever that turned in a moving performance alongside Brendan Gleeson in Calvary, as well as the comic alsatian dog turn in Sex Tape, which stands a good chance in the Rom-Com Rover category. The Fidos supports AA Dogs Rescue and the awards ceremony will be on December 7 at the Cinema Museum, SE11 (facebook.com/fidoawards2014). There can be only . . . two? It’s the franchise that wants to live for ever! Plans are afoot for a reboot of Highlander, the preposterous cult classic about immortals skirmishing across the centuries that spawned several sequels and a TV series. The first films starred Christophe Lambert as the death-proof Scottish warrior and it looks like the remake will retain a Gallic connection: the Frenchman Cedric Nicolas-Troyan is attached to direct. No news on who will step into Lambert’s kilt but the producers are rumoured to be chasing none other than Tom Cruise to play the Highlander’s dashing mentor, originally played by Sean Connery. Shurely shome mishtake?