Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Trailer

Hunger Games is kind of a weird phenomena. It somehow became one of the highest grossing movies of each year that it has been released. They are praised by most critic groups and made Jennifer Lawrence a star.  Young Adult novels have been a source for films for a while but most of them seem to fail. So far only Twilight and Harry Potter have been really successful  and now Hunger Games seems to be the most successful of the three. American audiences love it but foreign audiences have been a little less thrilled for these products. The first one didn’t do much overseas but Hunger Games: Catching Fire seemed to change that. Now I’m curious as to how the next one is going to do. It is clear that it is going to bank at the box office but how much can it make.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself in District 13 after she destroys the Games forever. Under the leadership of President Coin (Julianne Moore) and the advice of her trusted friends, Katniss spreads her wings as she fights to save Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and a nation moved by her courage.

Directed by Francis Lawrence. Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Jeffrey Wright, Jena Malone, Sam Claflin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Dormer, Stef Dawson, Willow Shields, and Donald Sutherland. Produced by Color Force Production and Distributed by Lionsgate Films.

Deadpool Test Footage

Deadpool has been in development hell ever since it was announced. Ryan Reynolds has been fighting for this movie to be made and Fox hasn’t been too keen on making it. The script is hard R and that would limit the box office potential. So for the longest time the movie has been on the back burn, never to be heard of again. Over the weekend Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller premiered test footage at Comic Con. Based on what I say I’m not a big fan. I liked him as a character in the comics but I don’t think that it will work as a movie. His character is too self aware that it will make for a boring and derivative film.

Deadpool’s creator Rob Liefield seems more positive than it do. Here is a quote from him dating back two years ago, “They’ve got a great director on the movie, they’ve got a great script. I may or may have not seen some sort of test of footage that would blow your mind if you saw it and go holy crap and that’s Deadpool in costume. Katana swords, guns, shooting people’s faces off and making me laugh. And I may or may not have seen something that looks just like that. And you’ve got what would amount to the first R Rated X-Men movie. Because that script is R Rated.” If it does see the light of day at least they have passionate people around it.

 

Sunshine Review, An Intriguing Premise Never Fully Realized

Sunshine

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Starring: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, and Michelle Yeoh

Science Fiction is a genre full of ideas. They tend to be the most thoughtful and interesting films that could use philosophy to its benefit. As of late science fiction has become something of a genre filled with action and superheros but they’ve lost the touch that made films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey a classic. Sunshine is an existential science fiction film filled with philosophy and an interesting idea. I mean for the first two acts anyways. Some where during the writing process they thought it would be a good idea to completely shift gears and turn it into a standard Alien rip-off. The movie had so much going for it until it fell into a clichéd ridden mess.

In 2057, the sun is dying and Earth is on the brink of extinction. Sent up into space to reignite the sun, a group of space travelers load a massive bomb on to the Icarus II. It is the final time that mankind can achieve such a mission. Once out of range of Earth’s communications  a distress signal is recovered from Icarus I. In an attempt to make contact with the space ship, it is decided that the crew is going to make their way to Icarus I so that they can get their hands on a second bomb and have more than one chance to reignite the sun. Once on the Icarus I they meet someone who will interfere with their mission.

The movie begins with a solid concept, the last remaining crew members must deal with the harsh reality of space, but as soon as the villain of the movie comes aboard everything goes wrong. An hour in it is all about the survival of the crew within space mixed with the philosophy of their journey. It bares influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and usually succeeds until the third act. The majority of the problems come from the complete shift of tone of the movie. Before you have this think piece that is interesting and then after the one hour mark it turns into Alien. The villain, Pinbaker (Mark Strong), essentially stalks his prey on board the ship and is intent on killing them. He is an interesting character in a whole. It feels disingenuous to the rest of the film. It makes me feel that the writers didn’t know where to take the movie and just decided that the best thing to do was create a villain that wanted to thwart their plan. It’s slightly lazy considering the rest of the film is incredibly thought provoking and one of the best things that the genre has to offer.

The movie is still relatively well made. Danny Boyle is one of the most competent directors working today. His vision wis this movie is incredible and the end thirty minutes is one kinetic thrill ride with insane editing but it conflicted with the slow and mellow hour before. The performances are intense and really showcase the actors abilities within the source material. Chris Evans seems to be best in situations like theses. Snowpiercer is another movie that really shows just what he is made of. The music is really well known now and it is amazing how well it works with the movie.

If it wasn’t for the terrible third act of this film and I would label this as one of the best science fiction films in a long time. It’s concept is unbelievable and the execution is spot on. It is an interesting experimental but a flawed one.

Grade: C+