Movie Review: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games 2

This is a spoiler-free review

Here is another book-to-film movie. Catching Fire was the 2nd book in The Hunger Games trilogy. While I hadn’t seen Enders Game before watching the movie, I have read Catching Fire, so I will compare the two. Good thing for Catching Fire, this comparison is fairly positive.

The nature of The Hunger Games is that one book leads directly into the other. So it is for the movies. If you didn’t see The Hunger Games, do not watch Catching Fire until you do. Catching Fire dispenses with any and all explanation of the world of Panem and the 12 Districts. You will be lost if you have not read the books or watched the first movie.

I’ll be rating this movie on story, acting, and overall quality. I’ll also be discussing the spare differences between the book and the movie.

Story

Starting less than a year after the first Hunger Games, Catching Fire begins with a tour of the 12 Districts by Peeta and Katniss, who are now at odds because Katniss faked her feelings for Peeta. However, President Snow himself has a given Katniss orders to make sure the relationship seems real to the people of Panem. He wants to avert a rebellion that was started by Katniss’s defiance in the Hunger Games. It is unclear exactly how Katniss and Peeta pretending to love each other will matter. Only talk of distracting the people is mentioned. I assume that Snow and the others in charge are supposed to be too stupid to think that people pay more attention to their reality TV than they do to the reality of their own lives. The tour is a failure because the people of the Districts see past the sham. So President Snow and his new GamesMaster, Plutarh Heavensbee, cook up a plan to quell the uprising. They start a new Hunger Games, using only winners of previous Hunger Games, which puts Katniss and Peeta back into the arena.  All of this is just Act 1. 

In Act 2 and 3, we are treated to a new Hunger Games. This second movie assumes you've seen the first, so most of the preparation is skimmed over and none of it is explained. I like not having to sit through the exposition again, so I was happy. The training and prep along with the beginning of the Games themselves go by swiftly, with only a few necessary plot points thrown in. It is when we are in the arena again that we can enjoy the new things that the GamesMaster has in store for the tributes. It's all very exciting. It plays a bit like Jurassic Park. It's not just the other tributes that are the danger, but the arena itself is turned against them.

The story is well put together and from the beginning, you can see how the writers and filmmakers ratchet up the danger and tension. When I read the book, I didn't see this as well as I did in the film. But with every new scene, it seems, there is a new danger to overcome, even before the Hunger Games start. This all made the movie fly by at incredible speed.

Acting

The acting in this edition of The Hunger Games is spot on. There were plenty of emotional moments to go around and every involved actor sold it. You even got to see Effie, played by Elizabeth Banks, break down when it was clear “her victors” would be going back in again. First, she tries to calm her own anxiety by resorting to her usual superficial quirks. But when it comes to saying goodbye to Peeta and Katniss forever, she can’t contain her grief. It was an amazing moment of character; bravo, Ms. Banks. Of course, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence was flawless as Katniss. I still don’t like Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, but that is more of a personal opinion. I just think he looks and acts like a blockhead. His acting was okay. 

Even new characters like Finnick Odair (who I always thought of as Middle-Eastern by his last name) was played well by Sam Claflin (not Middle-Eastern). Johanna Mason, played by Jena Malone was a fun, sparky character and well done. There was even an elevator moment where I wish I could have seen out of Hamish and Peeta’s eyes. Lucky guys!

The villains were well played again. Donald Sutherland is delicious as President Snow. He is able to handle the delicacies of this character, who is sinister and threatening in private while being charming and threatening in public. This is such a scary man but you only see it when you read between the lines like Katniss obviously does. Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is somewhat of a backstabber, it seems and you can never tell what his true motives are or where his allegiances truly lie. I liked him better than the GamesMaster from the first movie, who had an amazing beard, but not much character.

Book vs. Movie:

This edition of Hunger Games adhered closer to the book than I remembered the first Hunger Games being. They did make sure to highlight romantic moments between Katniss and Gale more than I remember the book doing. I always thought that was a limitation of the books. It seemed to me that they made much of Gale/Katniss/Peeta, yet there never seemed to be a connection between Gale/Katniss. The first movie was a stern offender on this point. But they made up for it in Catching Fire.

One of the offenses this movie made was glossing over Peeta’s artistic skills. They barely made mention of it, and then he’d spout off about colors and it left the audience going “Where did that come from?” (In the beginning of the book, you find out that Peeta turned to art after the first Hunger Games and became an accomplished painter.) If the movie was going to forget about the art thing, they should have cut that artistic dialogue, too. In the arena, you get most, if not all (that I can remember) of the dangers from the book. From the mist to the monkeys to the lightning, they cover all the bases. However, I wish they had done less, because there was one scene that left audience members in my theater chuckling and it occurred to me that if you didn’t understand the nature of the arena (that everything is created by the Gamesmakers) then it would seem silly. As it was, it even drew me out of the story for a moment.

Overall

This movie clocked in at 2 hours and 26 minutes (thanks IMDB), but I didn’t realize it until I looked at my clock on the way out of the theater. I was actually thinking that it was too short. When the movie was over, I guessed an hour and a half had passed. This is good. The pacing was spot-on. It was high intensity, high action all the way through. When this long of a movie passes this fast, it means the editor and director did a great job putting the film together.

 

I had two problems with this movie (together costing the movie ½ point). One, was the issue with the arena I mentioned earlier. The other was the way in which it ended. The ending is abrupt and there is very little resolution. The end serves only to set up the final film. If I remember right, the book ended the same way, which is one of the reason I didn’t like it so much. A bad ending can ruin a good book (or movie for that matter). 

I am enjoying the films far more than I enjoyed the books. I absolutely hated the third book, Mockingjay, so I am hoping the film version is as good as this one was. When I read the books, I read all three together. Now, I must wait another year or two until the final film. Catching Fire is my favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy film of 2013 so far.

Overall Score: 9.5 out of 10

Movie Review: Thor: The Dark World

The Dark World, Swartalfheim, is one of the nine realms of the world tree, Yggdrasil. Thousands of years ago, it was the home of the Dark Elves (Or Swart Alfs). The Dark Elves came to be in a time before light came to the universe. They prefer the dark and want the entire universe to be devoid of light (which the other races, obviously, don’t want). So, the Asgardians took up swords and kicked their asses. But the weapon they tried to use to accomplish their goals, the Aether, was not able to be destroyed and the Asgardians hid it in an underground cavern.

This is the story that opens the movie Thor: The Dark World. It’s a flashback very like the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring. And like that flashback, it is entirely unnecessary. About a half-hour into the movie, Odin actually tells the same story to Jane Foster when explaining the events that bring her to Asgard.

This is the singular flaw in Thor: The Dark World. If the editor had cut this opening flashback, the Aether would have been a mysterious force unknown to the viewer. When Jane Foster is exposed to it, the suspense of what is happening to her would have been that much more impactful. But someone at the studio thought the audience for this film would be stupid. Or, they were trying to stick to the formula from the first movie, which also opened with a flashback.

Other than this flashback, the Thor 2 is a fun, action-packed superhero flick. It doesn’t quite rise to the heights of some of the other Marvel movies like Captain America (the best of the bunch in my opinion), but I thought it was more interesting than the first Thor. It’s still a family drama, as Thor in comics form has always been. We have dispensed with the father-son tension and now we have sibling rivalry. Loki is disgraced and imprisoned – wrongfully in his opinion – and Thor is just a short step away from a throne that Odin seems eager to let him have (I’m guessing both Odin and an obviously bloated Anthony Hopkins want to retire in peace).

When the Dark Elves return and threaten Yggdrasil (the universe) again, Thor is forced to team up with Loki to save the life of Jane Foster, who has stumbled upon the Aether and been possessed by it.

This movie is heavily centered on Asgard. Where 80% of Thor was set on Earth, Asgard takes up 50-60% of Thor 2. 

Earth is the place this movie goes for its comic relief. The laughs come hard and fast when we are around Jane Foster’s crew. The comedy duo of Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgaard rip up the screen. Skarsgaard especially did some very brave work here as Erik Selvig, who is suffering from the aftermath of his possession by the Tesseract from The Avengers. Dude is cracked! Kat Dennings is the one-liner machine we know and love from Thor and 2 Broke Girls. I still love it when she can’t pronounce Mjolnir (Meow-meow). This time, she has a foil in the intern’s intern, Ian. Though Ian is merely just another face that could have been left out of the film, Kat turns the comedic tables on him a few times for laughs.

On Asgard, it’s the action that comes hard and fast. The seriousness is turned up a notch and we get the bad-ass royal family unloading on demonic monsters and Dark Elves. Though Odin only gets to wave his staff around (Hopkins has just gotten too fat to do anything else), Frigga (Renee Russo) gets a full blown fight scene. I was shocked when Frigga unloaded a flurry of sword attacks on an unsuspecting Dark Elf. Renee Russo has such a calm, regal demeanor, you just don't see it coming. It’s so much fun to see the denizens of Asgard fight for Asgard on Asgard. We didn’t see that in Thor, where the Asgardians only fought a war against the frost giants on Niffelheim and then got their butts kicked during the frost giant attack. Here, it’s a battle royale when the Dark Elves attack Asgard directly.

So we got laughs, we got action, do we got story?

Sort of.

Thor 2 is obviously Act 2 of a trilogy. It picks up where Thor (and Avengers) left off and sets up Thor 3. However, if you try to figure out exactly how that happens, you might have a little trouble. The overall story of the Dark Elves and the Aether is more of a plot point in the overall Marvel universe (which I will explain in a bit). But the real story here for the Thor universe is how Loki, ever the god of mischief, manipulates his family to get what he wants. This little plot is embedded so deep in the Dark Elf story that it is hard to see until the big reveal at the end of the film. Then, you go “OHHH!!!” and that light clicks on in your head. I didn’t see what was really happening until my second viewing of the film, when I knew how it was going to end and I could pay attention to the details.

For the Marvel universe, we are getting one step closer to the final confrontation with Thanos. The Aether has a relationship with the Tesseract (that energy cube from Captain America/Avengers) which is only revealed in the first cut scene during the credits. We can only guess that there will be more powerful artifacts revealed in future movies (like Guardians of the Galaxy) that will move the series toward Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet.

The performances were all pretty much as they were in Thor. Tom Hiddleston is a great Loki, Chris Hemsworth is a bad-ass Thor, etc. No one really underperformed here. I was a bit underwhelmed by the Dark Elves in general. They didn’t seem as big of a threat as they were made out to be. As villains go, they were boring, even the leader Malekith. One interesting point is that the Dark Elves spoke all their lines in their own language when speaking with each other. But even that language was obviously cobbled together. It wasn’t as richly portrayed as some other fantasy languages out there. I’m pretty sure the words didn’t mean anything, as they didn’t quite jibe with the translation captioned on the screen. Also, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) didn’t come off as the powerful evil he was supposed to be (on par with Odin). The Aether itself was the bigger threat.

Overall score: 8.5 out 10

Better than Thor, but still suffers from poor editing (the prologue) and a weak villain. It had a healthy dose of humor (which I am now expecting Thor 3 to top) and some really exciting and creative fight scenes (especially Thor/Malekith’s world-jumping battle at the end). The Thor franchise is becoming the “fun” Marvel franchise that Iron Man originally was.

Movie Review: Ender’s Game

I tried my best to limit the spoilers in this review. This should be a relatively spoil-free review.

This review isn’t about the differences between the book and the movie. It’s about the movie. I haven't even read the book yet. I’m judging this movie on its story, structure, characters and acting. It’s a big movie, what the studios call a “tentpole”, so it goes without saying that the special effects were amazing. You don’t release a movie like this with crappy special effects. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that the movie strayed considerably from the book. I’m not surprised by that. Ever since Hitchcock began adapting books (hardly any of his movies were original works), the book adaptation biz has been tricky. Screenwriting is not like book writing. In order to tell a visual story in 2 hours, you need to structure the narrative differently than a 352 page book (thanks to Amazon for the page count).

I also read an amateur review call this movie “soulless” and flat. I don’t agree with this at all. First, this is a sci-fi film. It can look cold and heartless at first to someone not used to the genre. Second, the two main characters in this movie, Ender and Graff, struggle with a concept that has so much soul that it could almost be an R&B album: 

How far will you go to protect the ones you love? Is it worth giving up your very humanity?

I made a concerted effort to stay away from spoilers before watching this film. The most I heard about it was that it had a twist ending (apparently, the novel does). That said, I saw the twists (two of them) coming. Fortunately, I saw the twist, but the characters did not. Ender and the other teenage geniuses had no way of seeing the truth behind the games they were playing. They were blinded by the nature of their training. This allowed for the buildup of tension as the adults hinted to the audience what was really going on while the kids were clueless. I didn’t mind the predictability all that much because of this. As long as their ignorance is not just due to stupidity, I’m happy to give up the surprise. I’m sure the filmmakers were aware that the majority of their audience would be in on it, thanks to the book. Judging by the reaction (or more precisely, the lack of reaction) when the big twist was revealed, most of the audience during my viewing saw it coming as well.

The story was structured in a literal buildup of complexity. It starts with the kids playing video games on an iPad type tablet, then it builds to them playing a team laser-tag type game in weightless space. Ultimately, that turned into playing more games with simulated starships. In a similar way, Ender’s character is pushed in more complex ways. At each stage, Ender finds a way to succeed until he finds himself becoming the monster he has tried so hard not to be. That is when his mettle is truly tested and he has to decide what is more important, his humanity, or the lives of all humanity.

The characters were all well thought out. The two main characters, the child genius, Ender, and the military commander, Graff, played well off each other. If Ender was pushed to become better at each stage of his training, Graff went through a mirrored arc. First, Graff insists that “the morality of what we do here" will have to wait until the war is over. He tries to separate himself from what he is doing to the kids he is training. But as Ender comes closer and closer to what Graff wants him to be, you can tell he is beginning to care for the boy more than the soldier.

Each side character had a role specific to Ender. His sister, Valentine was his anchor to Earth and his analog to humanity as a whole. When he considers the threat to Earth, he always thinks about his sister first. His brother was the example of the monster he feared to be (and I applaud the filmmakers for expressing this in a 2 minute scene and tiny bits of dialogue scattered through the film). His various teammates were indicators of his advancement as a leader. And, of course, Petra was the love interest, a Hollywood construction used pretty much only to make borderline sociopath Ender more relatable. I hope the book version of her was more robust.

There were a few antagonists for Ender along the way, the bully in his first school, his commander, Bonzo, in the second school, etc. But the main antagonist was Graff. Graff was the representation of the human government/military. He was the one who was responsible for making Ender what he was. And when the truth comes out, he is the one who the audience will ultimately blame. He’s not a bad guy. He’s not a villain. There are no villains in this movie, except for maybe Bonzo. Even the mysterious aliens, the Formics, are not really villains. They are just a vague threat in the background and the catalyst for the action in the movie.

The acting by the principle actors is phenomenal. Asa Butterfield (Ender) is convincing as a borderline sociopath who hates what he sees himself becoming. Harrison Ford is Graff. Graff is complicated. He is responsible for saving the world, yet he must use children to do it. There are moments where Harrison’s face becomes this complex sea of conflict that expresses the war going on in Graff’s soul.

Some of the minor actors show up to play as well. One of the standouts is Moises Arias, who plays Bonzo, the only really nasty character in the movie. He plays the role with such delicious hate and antagonism. I also liked Abigail Breslin as Ender’s sister. There was good chemistry between Asa and Abigail. They were convincing together.

The performance that fell flatest for me was Ben Kingsley, who played a character directly associated with one of the twists in the film. He didn’t show up until the final third of the movie, but even then, his character was uninteresting and seemed to only be there to reveal the key exposition in the film that answered most of the questions that the first third of the film asked. I’m sure he was more important in the book (I hope). I feel sad for the once-great Kingsley. After his horrible treatment at the hands of the people behind Iron Man 3, he is put in another role in which he has no chance to showcase his talents. Hailee Steinfeld, as Petra, was one of the other iffy performances for me. She was cute and adorable and everything else a “teenage love interest” is supposed to be, but she delivered her lines off a teleprompter, it seemed. There was a little chemistry between her and Asa, but her acting ability needs work.

Overall, the story was well told. The theme was apparent and well expressed. Structurally, it hit the beats it needed to. I got sucked into the story by the end of the first act. The main characters had well thought-out arcs. I was all ready to give this movie a great score (4 out of 5).

But then, the “resolution” came along. You know those extra five minutes that most movies use to wrap up the story? This movie took the story one step further in a development that felt like it was tacked on. Even the foreshadowing of the final event felt like it had been shot in post-production and dropped into the final cut later. Suddenly, we have the start of a new story. An artificial promise of a sequel. Characters began to act out of character (I’m looking at you, Petra). And just like that, I remembered I was watching a movie. And just like that, I lowered my opinion of the whole thing. Endings are like that. They can make or break a movie.

Yes, I know Ender’s Game is just the first of a 5 part series in the books, but I hate it when a movie sets up a sequel so ham-handedly. There was nothing subtle about it. I wish I could express it better without spoiling the end, but I can’t.

Bottom Line

  Story: 

I liked how the story flowed and how it increased the complexity and tension as it moved along. I got sucked in early on and didn't get pulled out until the last five minutes. It was a bit predictable, but for me this movie was more about the characters than about the plot.

  Characters: 

Ender was forced to dig deeper within himself at each stage of his training in order to advance. At the same time he was obviously being pushed to become something he is not. Through watching and guiding Ender, Graff becomes a more compassionate human being.

  Execution: 

The story was somewhat predictable, even for someone who hadn’t read the books. There were clichéd tropes like the hard-ass drill instructor (Dap) and the territorial rival (Bonzo) as well as the "team of misfits defeating the undefeated team in the final, championship game". But these all were secondary to the overall plot. 

The movie shines when it is Ender vs. Graff – a complex relationship almost akin to father/son. These two actors played off each other well and their confrontation at the climax of the film had an emotional pull that I haven’t seen in a sci-fi film in a long time. 

That should have been the end of it, though. 99% of the movie was about Ender/Graff. But the side plot at the end extended the movie where it didn’t need to go. We could have waited until the sequel to see that. Cutting the last five minutes and all the foreshadowing of it would not have hurt this movie at all.

Final Score: 3.5 out of 5

On Writing:

I've tried to think of topics that affect me on a day to day basis to put in this blog. I didn't want to make it a “writer’s blog” that would only interest writers. But I know, based on my Twitter following and the Sub-Reddits I post on, that I would have to write some things about writing.

So here is my general view on writing. This includes the things that have been bugging me in the last week or two while browsing Twitter and Reddit.

Write 

Why are you not writing? I’m not talking about avoiding distraction or scheduling time in. I’m talking about finishing the shit that you’ve started. Please stop posting five paragraphs of your first chapter on Reddit, then taking the feedback you get and starting the chapter over from scratch, then posting the new paragraphs of the same chapter again, then... you get the idea.

Clichés

Okay, I know clichés can be off-putting. I’m not talking about the turns of phrase you’ve heard a million times. I’m talking about the concepts that have pervaded certain genres for decades, if not centuries. Some of these concepts are archetypes. They speak to the audience we are trying to reach. I write fantasy. From a fantasy perspective, there are certain archetypes that I’m hearing now are being considered hackneyed or clichéd.

• The orphan with a great destiny: I loved stories like this when I was a kid. They spoke to me. And in these times of bullying and terror in schools, this is a great archetype to hang on to. If I were a kid nowadays, I’d love to escape into a fantasy novel where the hero is a young person like me. I think that writers don't like this because they are now grown up and don't relate to the orphan anymore. But if you are writing what is now called YA (which most of the fantasy from my childhood would be called if it was written today), then your audience will relate.
• The Hero’s journey: I heard on a writing podcast that we shouldn't write stories about the hero’s journey anymore. They are old and clichéd. I wanted to reach through the speakers and strangle the popular fantasy author who said this. The hero’s journey is an important story to tell. It describes the perilous path to self-improvement.

The important thing here is that there are many stories that are told over and over again for a reason. They deserve different interpretations.

There is the key: Different Interpretations!

Don’t tell the same story in the same way. In my trilogy, The Never-Born, I tell these stories, but I tell them in my own way. I take clichés and turn them on their head. That is part of the reason I’m writing the story. Hell, the bad guy is even the “orphan” kid’s father! And I make fun of this idea when one of the characters blurts out “Do you know how Star Wars that is?”

But in The Never-Born, I take this hero’s journey and pay it off at the end in a completely different way. I have tried to make my interpretation different than others. It’s the story inside these concepts where the reader will see the payoff. It’s fantasy. It’s escapism. It’s telling a story that resonates on a subconscious level. These are the important concepts of writing. There is nothing new. No one is telling an original story. No one. Not Neil Gaiman, not Brandon Sanderson... no one. We are only telling the same stories in different ways. That is what being original is about.

Take the cliché and make it your own.

Voice

How do you express your voice? This is a question I’ve been seeing on the periphery of a lot of Reddit and Twitter posts, not to mention many blogs I’ve been reading. Veteran authors are constantly telling us newbies to “find your voice”. What does that mean?

To me, it means telling your story how you want to tell it. I’m constantly reading posts and articles about “how” to write. People telling me that I can’t write a certain way.

For example, they say, “only use said and asked” for dialogue. Never use any other type of dialogue tag. Use action to express how a characters voice sounds.

Well, I’m an auditory guy. When I write dialogue, I hear the voices. I want my reader to hear the voices as I do. So sometimes I’ll use things like “growled” and “whispered”. Why should I leave a reader guessing about the sound coming out of my character’s throats? I want the passions to be expressed without having to resort to stage actor blocking (The type of OVER-EMPHASIZED ACTIONS that stage actors use so the people in the back row can see them).

That is my voice. That is how my books will always be and I make no apologies. My dream is for my readers to suddenly break out in reading the dialogue aloud as they read as I used to as a kid.

I’m a dramatic writer. I trained as a screenwriter, for film. My writing is short on exposition and fast paced. I try to be cinematic, so I use motion and the environment when I can. I use conflict dialogue a lot. I feel uncomfortable when I need to write long descriptions, but I know sometimes I have to. I discovered while writing my second Never-Born novel that I had to recap some of the events from the previous book and that nearly killed me. It was "too much" exposition, even when it was scattered through the book as needed.

That is my voice. What is yours?


There was another thing that was bugging me, too, but I forgot what it was and this post is running long anyway. If I remember or the issue rears its ugly head (see that? Cliché! Bite me!) again, I’ll post about it. And, who knows? I might just change my opinion on “said and asked” for another project. I’m only 3 novels in, so I’m still learning and finding my voice.

I think by the time the next post comes along, I’ll have seen Ender’s Game. I’ll post my first movie review here when I do. I’ve posted reviews of almost every fantasy/sci-fi movie I’ve seen on Facebook for the last few years, but I’d like to use this blog for that from now on. I can be more detailed and express myself better in a slightly longer format.

Well, I’ve hit my 1000 word mark, so I’ll catch you all later!