Ed's Review Dot Com

Color Force, Lionsgate, Studio Babelsberg,

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland

At the end of Part One, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was back, but severely affected by this time in the capital where he was brainwashed. He jumped at Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and tried to strangle her leaving her in the hospital severely injured. But as we pick it up, she’s recovering and the rebel alliance is planning to bring all the districts together to take on the capitol and President Snow (Donald Sutherland). The want to leave Katniss out of it, but you know she’s going to do her own thing and sets off on her own secret mission to assassinate President Snow. This is a fight to the finish with a war designed to determine the outcome of a free democratic Panem once and for all. But the odds are not so good.

THis is a very fitting finish to this series of films, and it’s sad to see it end. Jennifer Lawrence has grown so much through these films and it opened so many new avenues for her. She deserves all the praise she gets. This is filled with so many big stars, but we don’t even notice as they are all so well familiar to us at this point. This is one hell of a story, and the production values are out of this world. This one, however, if filled with nitty-gritty down and dirty fighting less so much of the super glitzy special effects that the other ones had, but still the scenes of the capitol are very awesome. Some of the traps that the defenders of Panem have set are amazing to watch. There’s plenty of action, lots of excitement, and explosions galore! The only negative I could think of is that as it wraps up, there are a couple “surprises” thrown in that are so predictable, that probably any of us could have written the screenplay to wrap this up. But that’s okay, we still enjoy watching it. This is a must see film, and a superb ending to what is one of the classic series of all time. See it!

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Color Force, Lionsgate,

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman

At the end of Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) brought the special games, with all the former champions, to a sudden halt when she shot an arrow into the force field. The last we saw them, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was missing and presumed dead, and Katniss had been rescued by the rebels and taken to their secret hideaway. This is where this story begins. Katniss is now being persuaded to become “The Mockingjay” who is the image of the revolution. The capitol has hit the area’s very hard, and District 13 was completely destroyed as punishment. The government has no qualms with killing innocent women and children. But when they find out that Peeta is alive, and seems to have turned his back on the revolution, now acting as a pawn for President Snow (Donald Sutherland), Katniss agrees to be the Mockingjay under the condition that somehow at the first available window, they will rescue Peeta.

As all the major adventure stories have done, Lionsgate has determined to split this film into two separate movies. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t do that considering that they’ll double the income by breaking into two movies. This really irked a lot of people, and brought a lot of criticism, but I think it was a good choice. I wish they could have filmed it all at once, though, since it is a guaranteed hit, so that they didn’t have to wait a whole year for Part 2! Many have criticized this film as dull and boring, but I found that not to be true. There is some decent action sequences here, although, of course, there are no more hunger games. Now it’s a real life fight for survival. But there is a lot of background info and story building here, and a lot of effort is put into developing Katniss’ commitment to the revolution, and her and Peeta’s relationship. She is learning a lot about herself as well. I found the film to be very well done, and the settings are spectacular looking. The character’s are well developed by now, and we get to further refine their character. I totally enjoyed this film, and am anxious for the finale.

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Color Force, Lionsgate,

Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Toby Jones, Amanda Plummer, Jeffrey Wright, Lenny Kravitz, Sam Claflin

Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) were winners of the 74th Hunger Games, and are setting out on their victory tour to each of the districts. But President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays a visit to Katniss and threatens her with harm to everyone she loves if she doesn’t play along and convince the people that resistance is futile, as the people are starting to rise up with hope against the government. When Katniss and Peeta fail, Snow announces that because it’s the 75th anniversary, he’s allowed to change the rules as he is every 25th anniversary. He declares that all former winners will complete in a tournament of champions in an attempt to kill Katniss and Peeta along with all the other champions.

This is the second installment of the Hunger Games, and it is not as good as the first film, for sure, but I really enjoyed it very much. The party who attended this with me was seriously disappointed in this film, as the first half they felt was very, very slow and boring. That may be true, but I found it slow and very interesting. I enjoyed the politics and the attention to detail of life in the districts and the nuances of the plots both for and against the government. As a result though, the action really doesn’t go anywhere until the games actually start. Then the excitement is very intense. I can see why some people felt that this was not as good, but as I said, I really did enjoy it. The island where the games were held was very impressive, and the details of the challenges were very intricate. All in all, it’s a very worthy successor to the original. I enjoyed this film, and recommend you catch it on the big screen if possible.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Twentieth Century Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios,

Beyoncé Knowles, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Knoxville, Aziz Ansari, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler, Judah Friedlander, Blake Anderson

Mary Katherine (who now calls herself M.K.), Amanda Seyfried, is a typical teen-age girl, growing up and pulling away from her Dad, who is obsessed with the idea of a land of tiny creatures who live behind their home. It turns out he is right, as M.K. is shrunk to tiny size by the dying Queen, and tasked with taking the pod to the center of the forest to be bathed in the light of the brightest night’s moon despite the efforts of the bad guys to stop that from happening. If she succeeds, she can save life in the forest, but if she fails, it’s the end of the line for the mystical creatures. Finding some help in unusual places, M.K. sets off on her quest, and perhaps to find herself in the bargain.

This animated film by Fox is one of the cutest of the recent crop. It’s not that unique, as this scenario has played out many times before, but the kids are sure to enjoy this one. The animation is good, and the story is decent, and this is a really pretty film to watch. The leafmen are fun heroes, especially Ronin (Colin Farrell) and M.K. is a strong female lead. There’s lots of good positive messages for the kids and it’s a story that I think can keep them interested. I know my grandkids enjoyed it. For an adult audience, it might not appeal to everybody, as it’s a very familiar tale, unless, of course, if you’re a fan of animation and want to see the craft well produced.

The best things of the film are definitely the spectacular job of animating this story, the relationship between the characters is very good, there are fun sidekicks like a couple of mollusks and of course the ever present pet dog (ala Honey I Shrunk the Kids) to put fear into the little creatures. Blue Sky Productions has shown that they are ready to take on Dreamworks and Pixar at making good quality animated action stories for families. I really enjoyed this film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

FilmDistrict, Contrafilm, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM),

Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Isabel Lucas, Connor Cruise, Kenneth Choi, Alyssa Diaz

This ill advised remake of 1984’s film of the same name has been updated to have the attacking army be from North Korea. A group of young people wake one day to find the armies of North Korea have taken over their city. They decide to fight, and take off, hiding in the woods taking every opportunity possible for fight for truth, justice, and the American way. One of the friends, Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) is a Marine, and helps train his friends to hideout and go underground. They call themselves Wolverines, and eventually join up with the armed forces to fight the enemy.

This film was ready for release in 2010, but MGM ran into financial problems and it was shelved. Perhaps it should have been one of those films that gets lost in the vault and found hundreds of years later when we’re all dead and gone and don’t have to watch it. This was a horrible film. There was no personality at all in the bunch of freedom fighting kids that gave you anything to interest you, and it was unimportant if they win or lose. There are lots of complaints about the film being unrealistic. Well, lots of movies are unrealistic fantasy and such, but this attempts to be a real war story that makes you feel like it ought to be an authentic war story, not a fantasy/adventure, but that isn’t my biggest beef with this film. The acting was just so bad, and the script doesn’t have anything for the people unlucky enough to be cast in this movie to work with. The whole thing is just rather silly. The original 1984 film had the Soviet Union as the attackers. That had to go, of course, since they don’t exist anymore. So the film was filmed with China being the bad guys, but in the 2 years it sat on the shelf, someone realized that if this film was released internationally, that China would naturally ban it, so they cast the villains as the North Koreans. I don’t suppose there is much of a box office in North Korea anyway, so go ahead and make them upset. But I really wonder if it ever was released in China, and if so, what the actual box office was. I haven’t been able to find that out, but I would expect it to be dismal. We can’t all like everything, and in my opinion this was a waste of my time. I really did not enjoy this at all.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog