Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 review

Susanne Collins’ book series and its subsequent film adaptations “The Hunger Games” has lead the pack of young-adult dystopian fiction. As an outside observer and a non-reader of the source-material, my familiarity of the films' well-worn pulp and science-fiction tropes combined with the overall seriousness in which they are presented has often left me cold. As the series has progressed both in budget and quality and as the story shifted from the hokey set-up of booby trapped game shows—hokey in execution, not necessarily concept—to the devastation of a revolutionary war scenario, my patience has increased in terms of the films’ undeniable tween demo targeting.

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” concludes this franchise with an emotional and visceral payoff for those who have been invested since the first page of the first novel. It’s by far the darkest of the four movies and challenges “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2” with its mounting body count. But unlike many of the films in this series that awkwardly juxtaposed its themes of violence with its interest in filling the multiplex with 13 year old girls, this installment is fully committed to the trauma and complex psychological torture involved with oppression and war.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has decided to break out on her own, away from the safety net of the other rebels and away from the propaganda war perpetrated by the rebel leader Alma Coin (Julianne Moore). With a little help getting out of her city district, Katniss and a group of other young soldier attempt to travel across the war-torn Capital to assassinate President Snow (Donald Sutherland).  On their journey they must avoid a series of dangerous booby-traps—less hokey this time around—while staying under the radar of the Capitals extensive surveillance.

After spending much of the last film brain-washed by the leaders of the evil government, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) has rejoined the rebels, now suffering from post-traumatic stress. The rest of the group, including Katniss’ other would-be suitor Gale (Liam Hemsworth), are skeptical of Peeta’s reintegration and Katniss’ loyalties are once again divided. By this point in the series, amongst all of the death and destruction at hand, the last thing I want to see is the further development of a love triangle. Though much of it is truncated in favor of the film’s more interesting arc about the exchange of one governmental dominion to another, whenever the movie pauses to pay lip-service to this sub-Twilight will-they-or-wont-they, the tragedy of war is momentarily trivialized.  

Besides the tonally inappropriate love-story, the majority of the movie has a shocking lack of levity. The stakes are as high as anything the series as presented thus far and director Francis Lawrence flavors the rebel’s deadly pursuit with almost horror-movie levels of tension and anxiety. In one particularly suspenseful scene, Katniss’ group are held up in a subway tunnel where they are attacked by subterranean mutant vampire-like creatures. There’s not a lot of blood-letting or gore in this sequence but the set-up and its cinematic effect adds up to some pretty scary stuff for a younger than teenage audience. It also happens to be the only moment in which Lawrence seems to be havin fun with the pulpier elements of this franchise.

“Mockingjay Part 2” makes interesting points about the way classism and war exploits those most vulnerable, doing most of the heavy lifting for the privileged outliers who only wish to propel their own ideologies. The film’s final act—minus a saccharin and pointless epilogue—includes a shocking political gesture and a bravely messy cap on the good-guys-verses-bad-guys nature of the story. It’s about 25 minutes too long, drags whenever the characters have talk to each other, and cannot be bothered to consider its existence as a piece of genre entertainment, but as the full maturation of a YA property, this final installment is smart enough and intense enough to warrant the lesser entrees that preceded it.

Grade: B-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2015

Listen to more discussion about "Mockingjay Pt.2" and "Carol" on this week's Jabber and the Drone podcast.

Beasts of No Nation review

Netflix has forever changed the traditional models of content delivery. Video stores were put on the endangered species list when people began subscribing to the company’s mail-based DVD rental system, and were later forced into extinction by its ever-expanding streaming service. Entire seasons of television shows, old and new, could be accessed with a single click and movies that people may have never considered watching were put on the same digital shelf as familiar classics. It wouldn’t be long before Netflix would start creating its own content, first in the form of serialized dramas like “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” and now in the form of stand-alone movies.

Netflix’s first original film “Beasts of No Nation” is an attempt to draw in a new audience that may not already be sold on the service’s versatility. In order to be eligible for awards consideration, this movie was given a day-and-date release, where it was available to stream from home alongside a limited theatrical run. This African war-thriller was written, directed and shot by Cary Fukunaga, director of the first season of HBO’s popular crime series “True Detective,” and the seductive style and the rich atmosphere that drew people into that show is certainly evident in this project as well.

The story here follows the life of a young villager named Agu (Abraham Attah) who is left an orphan when his family is gunned down in the streets by an invading government army. Agu manages to survive the vicious attack when he escapes into the bush. After a few days of struggling on his own, he is ambushed by a group of militant rebels who promise to give him food, water and safety if he joins their cause. Even more enticing, the young survivor is given a chance to avenge his family’s murder with the opportunity to train as a child soldier.

The group’s charismatic Commandant is played by English actor Idris Elba, who portrays the ragtag war-lord with a weighty sense of pathos and psychosis that makes it uncomfortably difficult to label him a monster, even as he indoctrinates eleven year olds into slaying grown men with machetes and keeps them enslaved to his agenda through heroin addiction. Elba plays this tyrannical Pied Piper with a world of pain behind his tired eyes and an unrelenting cycle of aggression expressed through the delivery of his radical speeches.

Attah is also given a strong arc as an actor, mentally aged far beyond his years as he is forced to endure and internalize the worst of human instincts. His character quickly loses his innocence while marching through the jungle with the other brainwashed lost boys and slowly loses his humanity as they pass from one massacre to another.

Fukunaga evokes Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” by giving us the same long, dead stare into the abyss, and in many ways “Beasts of No Nation” is a similar triumph of stylish and emotional filmmaking. It’s very well acted, it’s directed with confidence and conviction and the oppressive tone of the film lingers hours after the credits roll. Much of it is very well made and the power of individual scenes are undeniable, but the movie ultimately seems more concerned with mood than it does theme—of course the very same could be said of “Apocalypse Now."

Not unlike a perverse take on “Oliver Twist,” the fable-like nature of the film’s structure gives the movie something stylistically tangible to hold on to as it throws its audience into psychologically difficult terrain. Though sometimes this technique registers as pat or sensational when juxtaposed with the movie’s all-too-serious subject matter.

In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks a film like this, although documenting a very different culture, helps viewers understand the process of radicalization by humanizing those we may so easily label monsters and villains. The difficult truth is that in unstable governments it is often previous victims who become the most dangerous victimizers.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2015

Spectre review

The James Bond films are one of the only enduring movie franchises that’s given as much freedom as it has to constantly reinvent itself. The actors can change, the settings are always in flux and the adventures are allowed to be episodic as they like, without much of a rattle from the audience as to why or where the characters are going. There’s a base expectation for this series that’s pretty much summed up by its aesthetic choices; fancy cars, beautiful women, long chase scenes, tuxedos and disfigured bad-guys. If they manage to cram enough of those ingredients in each film, than things like plot coherency or emotional stakes almost have no consequence on the final result.

 The truth is most of these movies are bad. A lot of them are fun-bad, like eating a churro and frozen slurpee before riding on the tilt-a-whirl, but very few of them transcend the franchise and stand alone as compelling films on their own. Don’t get me wrong--recent offerings such as “Goldeneye,” “Casino Royale” and “Skyfall” come pretty close to as good as these movies have ever been, and as far as the classics go, I would wholly recommend the often under-discussed “On Her Majesties Secret Service.” But for every “Goldeneye” there’s a “World is Not Enough” and for every “Skyfall” there’s a “Spectre.”

“Spectre” picks up where “Skyfall” left off, after the death of Bond’s leading officer M (Judy Dench). And like every great spy, she left a video message for the international man of mystery explaining that there is a very threatening loose-end out there that still needs to be tied up. 007, still played by Daniel Craig, with his particular style of world-weary swagger, is set off on a personal mission to hunt down the mysterious leader of a shadow organization (Christoph Waltz) who is currently attempting to hack an online, global terror surveillance—not unlike the NSA. Along the way, Bond runs into the daughter of one of his former villains (Lea Seydoux) and tries to keep her protected from Spectre assassins while trying to figure out how all these things are connected.

A lot of what the Craig iteration of these movies have aspired to do is to reinterpreting the Bond aesthetic through the post-modern lese of post-911 terror-noia. Though this movie suggests a deeper subtext about the dangers of electronic spying and governmental overreach, the majority of this film is much more concerned with filling the run-time with wall to wall action sequences. They’re certainly shot with a lot of technical skill and attention is payed to the construction of a set-piece, but too often they are placed with no intention of moving story along or informing the characters in any meaningful way.  All of these chase scenes and extended fight sequences, as expensive and as thrilling as they sometimes are, have an undeniable lack of gravitas when compared to the true sense of danger that permeated the other Craig films.  This is amplified by the fact that Waltz’s villain is off camera for the majority of the film and is never integrated enough in the narrative to properly earn his reputation as the baddie above all baddies, that the script is trying to sell him as. And despite lacking the simple payoffs of decent storytelling, the movie still manages to clock in at an awkwardly paced two and a half hours.  

“Spectre” will ultimately be counted among the filler that exists between the highlights of the Bond franchises but it has a charm and devil-may-care sense of irony that almost apologizes for its schlock with a wink at the audience.  While it’s undeniably a stupid movie, a lot of it is superficially entertaining, in that junkie, Bond-movie sort of way. Sam Mendes is a terrific visual director and the action, as baseless and banal as it ends up being, is, at the very least, considerate of its presentation.  I would have like villain with a little more incentive, a hero with a little more conflict, and plot with a little more…well…plot, but instead I simply enjoyed another spin on the tilt-a-whirl.

Grade: C+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal - Nov/2015

Steve Jobs review

Writer Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”) and director Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting”) have teamed up to tell the story of Apple CEO and proto-Ted-Talker “Steve Jobs.” Given the success Sorkin had with his previous techie biopic “The Social Network,” in which he won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay about the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, his connection to this project makes a lot of sense. Perhaps it’s not the boldest or the most unconventional move for the writer to make at this point in his career, but you can always guarantee that if Sorkin is going to tread water he’ll do so with the grace and agility of an Olympic swimmer.

Like David Fincher, who was considered an edgier genre auteur at the time he agreed to direct “The Social Network,” Boyle’s involvement with this subject matter exists a little farther outside of his comfort zone. His hyper-kinetic visual choices and the psychologically subjective character portraits that have generally defined his style are sheathed to service a very dialogue-centric screenplay, where characters often say everything they’re thinking and feeling before the camera has time to imply it.

The structure of this movie is the most interesting thing about it. Each act of the film takes place during a different launch of Apple technology; starting with the Macintosh 128k in 1984, the NeXT in 88 and finally the iMac in 1998, that helped pull the company out of dire straits after failing to compete with Microsoft for a significant stint of time. Each of these launches play out like separate one-act stage performances where Steve Jobs, played fantastically by the enigmatic Michael Fassbender, is forced to deal with the stresses of his life and consequences of his career achievements, only moments before he’s supposed to unveil his company’s latest gamble. Each time, we are introduced to the same set of personalities that circle Jobs’ world.

Like his Zuckerberg, Sorkin’s take on Steve Jobs is that of a man who is haunted by own hubris, leaving a pile of smoldering bridges behind him as he blazes down the path of his own ambition. In repeating the same beats, revealing these moments of frustration before every new unveiling, the movie is instantly charged with a sense of nervous anticipation. 

All the actors are working hard for supper here, delivering the hyper-verbose Sorkinese dialogue like they don’t have time to get it wrong. Seth Rogen plays the humble but frustrated Apple Co-creator and engineer Steve Wozniac, who wants, and cannot get, a measly shout-out for his team’s Apple II contributions. Michael Stuhlbarg plays an approval-starved engineer who tried to stand in for Steve’s conscience and Kate Winslet plays a type-A work-wife named Joanna Hoffman, who’s desperately trying to keep the world from crumbling under her boss’s feet, even as he stomps through people’s sensitives in defiance.  Jeff Daniels steps in as a financier who also doubles as a father-figure for the so-called genius, all while, at the same time, Jobs carries on an arms-length relationship with his daughter, whom he initially refused to call his own.

Believe it or not, the bigger of a jerk the character of “Steve Jobs” is, the more interesting he is to watch. The movie only stumbles when it tries to humanize him too much, including a final ten minutes that tries to cowardly soften the blow of the two hours of shrewd and uncompromising self-assurance exhibited before it. The moments of dramatic weight come from a tension that exists between the high-stakes of Jobs’ vision to see his products perform well and the emotionally drained lives around the character that are begging for the same level of attention. This unfortunate cop-out of an epilogue is somewhat destabilizing, but not a big enough knock on the film to ruin it completely. 

Everything we see here—the writing, the directing and the performances—should be expected from the high level of talent involved and perhaps the fact that the movie doesn’t exceed expectations makes it feel as though it’s less accomplished. That notion is a mirage based on the unfair reality that this project was released after “The Social Network,” but a silver metal is nothing to be ashamed of.

Grade: B+

Originally Printed in the Idaho State Journal/Oct-2015