"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" Review

Well, I ignored it for “About Time”, didn’t want to be too predictable. I finished that review and went back to the movies. Like always, I didn’t check what showtimes were available and decided to see the closest showing of whatever movie I hadn’t seen before. Fate brought our paths together that day and lo and behold, it looks like its day in court has come. This time the Man without a Plan takes a look at “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”.

Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) return as victors of the 74^th Hunger Games, a competition held by Panem’s elite where the children of the lower districts are chosen to fight to the death as the districts’ punishment for a rebellion against the government. A boy and a girl are chosen from each of the 12 districts, and the children kill each other till one is left standing. At least, it was so before Katniss and Peeta. Their refusal to kill each other along with Katniss’ compassion and bravery has inspired people in the districts to talk of revolution, leaving the leader, President Snow (Donald Sutherland), to target her, Peeta, and all previous victors in a new kind of Hunger Games to qualm the struggle before war breaks out.  

With this sequel, I feel I should describe what I think of the original and the series as a whole. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read the books.) I think the premise is fascinating. The idea of children being offered as sacrifice for the entertainment of the victors of war is horrifying, yet fascinating. It gives an opportunity to show how the media affects society and how easy it can be to forget about the ramifications of war when one is far away from its reality. For a generation of kids born in a post-9/11 society, whose darkest exposures were the latter Harry Potter books, this series takes risks and trusts its audience to be mature. However, the filmmakers understand kids will watch this movie and doesn’t scare them without purpose. The images are violent and hard to watch, but in the end, Katniss’ bravery and compassion pulled us through. My main problem with the first movie is that I don’t have that big of an understanding of the world of Panem. I understand this takes place in America after a war, but save for a few blurbs, I don’t know much about this war, the major players, why it happened and why the post-war society places so much emphasis on makeup, fashion, and entertainment. I feel the first “Hunger Games” sets up the questions ok, but if I didn’t know there was going to be a sequel, I’d feel lost, confused, and a bit annoyed. Too much action, not enough story.

I entered into the sequel with quite a bit of hype and expectation. I hoped this movie would expand on Panem, show more of its history. I wanted to see more psychology, wanted to see the story progress, grow grander and heavier. The sequel has good ideas…but ultimately disappointed me. From what I’ve heard and read from fans online, they appreciate “Catching Fire” for sticking very close to the book, as any fan would want from its adaptation. For me, “Catching Fire” retreads familiar ground, losing its initial intensity. The movie drags and overall, it bored me.

The decision to put Katniss and Peeta back in the Hunger Games is the weakest aspect of the film. Save for some creative new obstacles (the birds and fog come to mind), the intensity is dialed down. The movie tries to add in chase after chase and danger after danger, but I’ve seen this all before. The Hunger Games worked in the first film because it threw us into the world without any mercy, similarly to how the Capitol broke the innocence of the children, forcing them to face real danger and trouble when they were clearly unable to. It set up the horror, giving Katniss a vantage point that would help her understand fully what she’s fighting for. However, instead of exploring the Games’ effect on her mind and the ramifications of her effect in this revolution, the movie puts her back in the same situation. She isn’t allowed to progress as far as she could in the first one and it feels like a step backwards.

I wouldn’t be as disappointed to have Katniss put back in the Hunger Games if the movie didn’t ignore the secondary cast yet again. We get nuggets of their thought progress: Katniss’ best friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) gets more active in the revolution, her sister Prim (Willow Shields) lives with the weight of increased army presence, inheriting Katniss’ no-nonsense personality without sacrificing hope for better days, and President Snow focuses his efforts in squashing any thoughts of rebellion and any symbol of hope. The problem is these characters aren’t as looked into as they should be and while they should be intriguing, the movie doesn’t give them a chance.

However, the award for biggest character disappointment goes to the king of Terabithia. Peeta is downright useless in this movie. I know Katniss is supposed to be empowering and a good role model for girls, and she is. But with Peeta, we just swap gender roles in the damsel-in-distress scenario. Was it really this hard to give Peeta the ability to carry his own weight? It feels like all he does in this movie is fall on his face and get saved by Katniss and the rest of their crew. I wouldn’t mind it once or twice, but it got to the point where I was in the theater, laughing at how inept this guy is. It’s not like the first movie treated him the same way, it established Peeta’s skills as a master of disguise and showed off his physical strength. He has the ability to stand for himself but the ways in which he gets in trouble don’t fit the character. It grates on my nerves.

Ok, I don’t want to bash this film and make it seem unwatchable, because there are aspects to admire. The design is refined from the first movie: the presentation of the city and its extravagant elements blows me away. There’s a scene where Katniss and Peeta attend a party before the Games and the color scheme just pops. Backgrounds dazzle in their subtle way and the symmetry strengthens the foundation of the overall look. The first movie looked duller: all we saw externally of the Capitol was the muted silver buildings, which while pristine and modern in its architecture, didn’t stand out from any other futuristic movie. Here, the camera shows off a little more; it looks better this time around.

I’m going to blame culture shock for my lack of appreciation for the costumes and makeup in the first movie. The emphasis on it felt more like a distraction than anything, and while I still don’t quite understand it, this time around I expected it, and could turn off my brain to fathom how much work and effort went into these elements. For a new character, Johanna, she wears a dress resembling her forest home. The top's pattern looks like a tree and the texture looks eerily real; I feel if I touched it, the dress would be feel like bark. The attention to detail is exquisite. For Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), Katniss' publicist, her style starts out enveloped in the Capitol's fashions. Big hair, bold colors, lots of layers. It begs for attention. But as her character develops, her wardrobe develops with it. The color scheme gets warmer and the layers are less emphasized. Katniss' outfits definitely fit in the Capitol's fashions: angular dresses and a lot of volume, but they don't get too extravagant, fitting her down-to-earth personality. The costumes can be overlooked by many in movies, but here, they play an important part in showing off the characters and they look great.

It’s really a shame this movie isn’t as great as it could have been. The secondary cast is tossed to the side when they could’ve been looked at more, Katniss and Peeta go through the same motions when the movie could’ve explored the extent of their celebrity and how media can distort and mess with people. Katniss shows a little bit of how the Hunger Games affected her mind and her habits; she has ethical dilemmas, but the movie only tosses hints of how she deals with it. The movie looks great, and some of the new characters (primarily Johanna) are nice introductions to the series, but in the end, it feels like a weaker re-telling of the original. The ending is satisfying; I want to see how the series ends, but it was an ordeal getting there. If you’re a big fan of the first movie or the book series, you’ll probably like it, but if you’re casual to the series, I’d read the plot summary and wait for “Mockingjay: Part 1” to come out next year. As always, thank you all for reading. I’m the Man Without a Plan, signing off.

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keT5CRhhy84

"About Time" Review

Hello all, the Man Without A Plan here, doing yet another movie review. This time, I take a look at “About Time”, the new film from Richard Curtis, the writer of Love Actually and Notting Hill. (Yes I forwent doing the new Hunger Games movie, decided to be spontaneous, y’know?) When lonely introvert Tim turns 21, his father discloses the family secret: all the males in his family can travel back in time to any moment in their lives. Overjoyed with his newfound skill, Tim fixes his mistakes and tries to find a girlfriend, but life and love are always hard to navigate, no matter how super you are.

What’s a shame about the movie is that due to the marketing, it comes off as your typical romantic picture. Immediately, the male demographic takes off in the opposite direction and people like to write it off as just a “chick flick”. There are two problems with this: First off, just because a movie’s marketed towards women doesn’t make it bad. There’s this ridiculous classifying of “chick flicks” that implies that if a movie is meant to appeal to women, it should be held to a lower caliber than any other film. You hear critics talking about movies like “Bridesmaids” like, “if this is a “chick flick”, then call me a chick” or “this isn’t a “chick flick”, this is hilarious”. When did the appeal to gender matter more than whether it’s entertaining or effectively dramatic? Second off, and more logically: the movie doesn’t spend all its focus on the romance. At its core, “About Time” is about Tim’s life, his relationship with his family and friends, and the twists and turns his life takes, for better or worse. It’s a simple story about an ordinary man, and you know what? It’s refreshing!

Rare is a movie that doesn't feel the need to add in conflict for the sake of sparking up drama, but About Time does it well by delivering a great cast and top-notch writing. I love this cast; the main supporting ensemble feels like a real family. They talk about their problems, help each other, have fun. This is a family that really loves each other and from the absent-minded Uncle Desmond (Richard Cordery) to the spontaneous free-spirited Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) and Tim's relaxed but playful father (Bill Nighy), I fell in love with them all. This is an ensemble cast that works.

Domnhall Gleason (Bill Weasley in the latter Harry Potter movies) plays Tim as the "adorable nerd". He balances that spectrum well: he has the fumbling charm of a Michael Cera with the sarcastic wit of a Jesse Eisenberg, never playing one or the other too far. The movie gives him a lot to work with and he handles it all, from the highest bliss to heart-wrenching tragedy. Tim is simple: he just wants to enjoy life and find love and the performance is endearing. He's very easy to root for.

Mary (Rachel McAdams) plays Tim's love interest and she's a great fit. She's cute and shy, insecure but never afraid to try something a bit off the wall. Her and Tim's chemistry is a lot of fun to watch: they banter and flirt, but the time travel element lets them play around with reactions, making for different scenarios and interaction. They enjoy each other and from beginning to end, it's fun to see them go through life together.

Now, the actors play their parts well, but a good actor does not a good character make. So who do you get to write these characters? Well, the guy who did "Black Adder" and "Mr. Bean" is a fair choice. Similar to those projects, Richard Curtis gives these characters wit and playful energy. There's a moment when Tim and Mary are walking around London when she tells him about her job as a professional reader for a publishing company, and as idiotically blunt (but funny) as he is, he asks if after a while, reading for fun loses its edge, like sex for a prostitute. Oh, does she have him done for! She gets him for it hard, and I was laughing all the way. Curtis plays his build-up smart, the punchlines aren't always obvious and the surprise makes for great comedy.

The problem with time travel in a lot of movies is that the rules for how time travel works and how one can affect their lives while doing so is either inconsistent, confusing, or both. Back To The Future, Quantum Leap, Free Birds: these ones made the notion easy to understand. Even in Back to the Future 2, when multiple timelines are strong together, the movie takes its time and it's not hard to follow. About Time works the same way. The initial rules are easy to understand and while the process for actually doing the time-travel is a bit random, (I just realized if Tim found a blue police box, it would fit the guidelines) it's simple and helps set up some funny punchlines. The rules get a little more complicated as the film goes on; it's definitely weird, but serves a purpose. To quote Captain Barbossa in the first Pirates of the Caribbean: "they're more like guidelines than actual rules." Time travel doesn't take up a focus in the film, but it does lend itself to a different kind of conflict. It's Tim's greatest ally and antagonist.

Overall, About Time is heart-warming, funny, dramatic, and above all, natural. The moral's one we've heard before but following these characters and the way they go about learning that lesson feels like a journey, not an after-school special. The acting's great, the writing is funny and intelligent, the movie makes you feel good. What more can you really ask for? Thank you, as always, for reading, and  I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.

"About Time" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7A810duHvw

"Ender's Game" Review

"He's back so soon?" You're damn right I am! Hi, I'm the Man Without A Plan, returning for yet another movie review. This time, we've got "Ender's Game", an adaptation of the beloved sci-fi classic by Orson Scott Card. The story features Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a boy who lives in the distant future. He's chosen for his strategic ability to go to a school for gifted children that teaches them skills for battle and leadership to prepare them for a potential future attack against an alien race who nearly wiped out humanity years before. Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) leads the "Battle School" and wants to train Ender to be the ultimate one-man army. He believes Ender has the potential to command the entire interstellar fleet and wants to keep him isolated to focus on his training and the destruction of the aliens, but his assistant Major Anderson (Viola Davis) wishes to keep Ender's innocence and humanity intact. After all, he's just a kid. Ender tries to balance these opposing ideas while learning how to become the greatest commander the world has ever known. Little does he know he may get his chance to prove himself sooner than he thinks.

I really like this kid. Butterfield plays the "chosen child" archetype with enough confidence to set himself apart from the rest of the kids, but he always feels like a kid. He's playful, mischievous, compassionate. It's rare that I see a main lead that really, you know, leads the movie. So often I see a row of colorful, interesting characters having to make up for the everyman routine the main lead gives off. Here, Ender's charm and wit shines through; he carries the movie superbly.

The "Battle School" is cool too. The design itself is your typical sci-fi: space suits, large shuttles, futuristic technology, etc. However, the slick cinematography and quick editing gives the film an overall crispness that feels stylish. Enough time is spent learning about how the school functions that the sets don't just feel like backgrounds; the film creates a world of its own. The students play through simulations that test their skills in strategy and command. It's kind of like playing laser freeze tag in zero gravity. The object of the game is for one team to get at least one player through their opponent's base. If they manage to get one person through, they win. However, if a player is shot by one of the lasers, they're frozen and move around aimlessly. It's fun to see the kids' different plans and how they're executed. Each game is different from the last and each strategy varies depending on the opponents and conditions applied. This livens up the action and is enjoyable to watch.

Ender struggles between compassion and aggression. Whether it be fighting the aliens, bullies, or even the Colonel at times, he balances between being diplomatic and using brute force to overcome. Unlike movies like "Avatar" or "Independence Day" where one side is advocated over the other, "Ender's Game" chooses to introduce a third overlying option: strategy. Instead of acting right away, Ender tries to look at as many factors he can before making a decision. Inaction doesn't equal indifference here: his reactions to a situation change if new information is introduced. Circumstances matter, especially in conflict, and sometimes a missing piece of the puzzle can make all the difference. A change in reaction doesn't make the choice invalid: he makes the best with what he's got, but it's refreshing to see a movie where its course of action isn't seen as the only right one. The movie gives a scenario and offers the viewer options for interpretation. It realizes that not only is the choice important, but the reason why it's made and how it's executed is important as well, if not even more crucial. I think this is a good idea to introduce, especially to kids, who are developing their processes for dealing with conflict every day. This movie gives them an option to explore that isn't as explored in other movies, showing its ability to be used in real life.

I have few problems in dialogue and an occasional imbalance of tone, but "Ender's Game" was a lot of fun to watch. It's a breath of fresh air in the sea of "man vs. alien" films, exploring the decision-making process of battle and the psychological ramifications of those choices in a way that appeals to a younger demographic without dumbing it down. I really enjoyed this flick, check it out. I'm the Man Without A Plan, signing off.

"Ender's Game" trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UNWLgY-wuo

"Thor 2: The Dark World Review"

Hello all, and welcome back! I'm the Man Without A Plan, here to do another movie review. This time I'm taking a look at "Thor 2: The Dark World", a film that ramps up the humor and action of the original, but drapes it over a plain story.

The Dark World is the home of the Dark Elves, a race existent before the universe in an era of total darkness. Desperate to return to that state, the Elves' leader, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) planned to use a weapon called the Aether to destroy the universe and return to the original state. However, when Malekith was about to use it, the Asgardians caught wind of the plan and waged a war, ravaging the Elves and their home, stealing the Aether in the process. They buried the weapon underground, while Malekith escaped, vowing to find the Aether and wreak vengeance on Asgard.

Thousands of years pass and while researching an interdimensional anomaly, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) an Earth astrophysicist and Thor's love, is accidentally transported to the burial spot and comes across the Aether, which melds itself inside her body, acting like a symbiote, violently defending itself from anyone who tries to harm her. Concerned for Jane's safety, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) returns to Earth and takes her to Asgard, determined to find a way to rid her of the Aether and destroy it once and for all, unaware Malekith senses the weapon and is on the hunt to retrieve it.

"Thor 2" suffers from what I call "sequel-itis." Because of the major successes that were the first "Thor" and "The Avengers", pressure is placed on the filmmakers from the studio to make another movie for the franchise, quickly. What usually happens is that the movies end up having plain stories but the elements that draw people in, such as action, humor, and special effects are ramped higher. People already recognize and love the characters, so not as much time is used to develop them. It makes the movie feel like a campfire lit with lighter fluid: more flash and bang, but the wood doesn't burn steady for long.

The success of "The Avengers" and the universe it set up separates "Thor 2" from being too far gone. One of the movie's strengths is in how it portrays its main lead. Because of the first movie and "The Avengers", Thor isn't as playful, cocky, or quick to the draw. He's become tempered by the weight of his guardianship of Earth and the Nine Realms. He doesn't jump into violence at the first glance, he looks at the situation from the vantage point of the people he's trying to protect, putting their needs first. He doesn't lose all personality; he has fun with Jane and Loki. In fact, the brotherly bantering is my favorite part of the movie. However, you can see a maturity in Thor he didn't have at the start. He's learned strategy, teamwork, and how to lead from his experiences, using those lessons to make smart choices here. While Thor isn't as dynamic of a character in this particular story, one can see the results of his progress and admire his overall growth. Because "The Avengers" required so much to tie in from the other movies and will require the same from these sequels for its sequel, "Thor 2" has elements in its story that tie back and foreshadow to events in the larger universe. When the movie steps out and shows the big picture, it's impressive. When the movie gets back to its story though...it falters.

A part of the blame does lie on Malekith as a character. Eccleston has the vice and command to play a strong villain (the Daleks can back me on this) but the character stays in the background a lot of the time, often making the monologues or being shrouded in shadow. The actor does a fine job, but he's not given a whole lot to do.

However, I would say that most of the blame for the lack of story lies in the same cause for the movie's strength: the success of "The Avengers." Before that film, the Marvel movies made, while some better felt like independent stories. They could fit in a bigger universe, but each movie never felt like they owed something to that bigger story. They could exist and breathe on their own. Ever since "The Avengers" came out, the focus has shifted. Now, the idea of a bigger story is in the public consciousness so the newer movies like "Iron Man 3" and "Thor 2" end up feeling less like their own concrete piece and more like a piece of the puzzle. Whenever I see Thor's world in peril or Iron Man's house being destroyed, in the back of my mind I'm aware there's a larger narrative at stake, so the stakes levied by these individual tales carry less weight. I'm logically not as invested. The developments in the characters' relationships with each other and themselves aren't as focused on to fit the model for sequel-itis, but since there's a bigger story in play, these new elements don't carry as much impact because I know this won't matter in the long run.

This doesn't mean that the action isn't creative or the new additions are all bad. The pacing of the action is done better here in the original "Thor." It has more variety, going through different stages and layers before giving clever, exciting payoffs. A great new addition is Malekith's main henchman, who is infused with the power of the Aether, becoming a monstrous soldier. He's a fresh addition: menacing and powerful. When he's on screen, I knew he meant business and I was worried for how Thor would win against him. He's fun to watch, and overall, I say the movie's fun to watch.

Call it heightened expectations, because the movie doesn't evoke the same kind of blockbuster excitement as "The Avengers", but on its own, "Thor 2: The Dark World" is a decent action film, with enough razzle-dazzle to entertain fans and newcomers alike. The story is plain and the investment isn't high, but what's executed well is executed well. I like it, go check it out. This is the Man Without A Plan, signing off.

Thor 2: The Dark World trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bFZJ-3zNFg