By Brett Blake Though it is not without flaws (which we’ll eventually get to), THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 continues the franchise’s streak of providing thoughtful and resonant action/adventure entertainment, this time with even more of a dark, political drama(ish) undercurrent. It also once again reminds us that Jennifer Lawrence is a bonafide megastar, and one with serious dramatic prowess to back it up. Picking up directly from the events of last year’s THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, we find Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) now a guest of District 13, the nerve center of the revolution against the Capitol of Panem and its sinister ruler, President Snow (Donald Sutherland). More than anything else, the movie is really about the optics of fighting a propaganda war, and we watch as the brain trust of the resistance, namely Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and District 13’s leader, President Coin (Julianne Moore), try to figure out how best to use Katniss as a symbol to unite all the Districts in the fight against the Capitol. Jennifer Lawrence continues to be an exceptional anchor for this series. Her Katniss is a fully human figure, wracked by concerns and doubts, but one who nevertheless finds it within to stand up for herself and for others. Both vulnerable and strong, Lawrence this time brings a deep undercurrent of seething, righteous anger to the proceedings, and her character’s ascension to full-blown propaganda figure for the revolution is handled with the right amounts of grace and conviction by Lawrence. She’s a magnetic film presence, and she shoulders all the big moments - whether they be action-y moments, or dramatic moments, or emotional moments - with incredible ease. Lawrence is once again joined by an aces, all-pro supporting cast of both returning and new faces. Of the returning group, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman leaves the biggest impression, since - given the revelations about his character at the end of the previous movie - he’s essentially playing a radically different man this time around, and he adds a dose of warmth and playfulness to balance out the character’s shrewd nature. The likes of Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Claflin, Liam Hemsworth (finally given some interesting material to play this time out), and Donald Sutherland (once again nicely underplaying his character’s villainous nature) all show up and do fine work, as well. Previously a central figure, Josh Hutcherson is rather short-changed by the storyline in this particular film, but the moments he does get portend some very interesting developments for him in the next (and final) movie. Of the new arrivals to the cast, the biggest is surely Julianne Moore as Coin, the de-facto president of the resistance movement, and it’s kind of a fascinating performance. Some of that comes down to the way the character is written (the movie seemingly goes to pains to avoid showing Coin as some kind of do-no-wrong saint who will restore democracy to the country with ease, instead allowing the character to be nuanced and - potentially - harboring hidden agendas), but a lot of what makes Coin an interesting character (in the context of this film; I can’t speak to the character’s depiction in the book) comes from Moore, who imbues this woman with a sense of deep calculation as well as humanity. This is a real, grounded performance, and I suspect Moore will have even more to chew on in next year’s PART 2. There are a few big action beats this time around, though far less than in either of the previous films. This is due to the nature of the story’s structure, which eschews the more blockbuster-friendly nature of the Hunger Games themselves in favor of a much more grounded look at how media perceptions can make or break a war effort. As it turns out, the movie is far more a political drama than anything else, and this material is handled very well. The philosophical and strategy discussions we witness are full of gentle, savvy satire, and these moments are as compelling and engrossing as any of the action bits; indeed, the character interactions and conversations are the true highlights this time out. They’re also treated with a seriousness of purpose, an unwillingness to talk down to a blockbuster audience; the dialogue is as intelligent and thoughtful as you might find in a straight political drama, and this intelligence remains one of the series’ biggest strengths. The technical categories are all top notch, from the dystopian bunker aesthetic of District 13’s production design, to the surprisingly thunderous sound mix, to the hugely effective (though subtle) makeup effects. James Newton Howard contributes his best score so far for the series - there’s a sequence where Katniss sings a song called “The Hanging Tree,” and Howard takes the melody and embellishes it in grand orchestral fashion to underscore a rebel attack on a dam; it is one of the most potent and effective combinations of music and imagery in any film this year. The movie does have a significant flaw, however, and that is that it is in no way a fully-formed motion picture. By design (read: the studio decreed that the source novel be split in half, as has been the new custom for adapting the final novels in popular book series), MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 is literally that, one half of a larger film, the conclusion to which we won’t see for another full year. I’ve seen some calling the final moments of the movie a “cliffhanger,” but I don’t think it’s anything of the sort. The movie simply stops. Yes, the last moments leading up to that stoppage do lay exciting groundwork for what we will see in the final installment - and there’s an attempt to close the film on an emotionally interesting and complex note - but there’s not even a cursory stab at crafting a kind of mini-climax for this first half of the MOCKINGJAY story. In ten years, once the dust has settled and we’re able to look at THE HUNGER GAMES as a complete series of four movies, there is no way a person is ever going to sit down and decide to watch MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 on its own and for its own merits; he or she will most likely sit down and view both halves of the MOCKINGJAY story together, as they were originally conceived in literary form. If PART 2 sticks the landing, this will be much less of an issue, if it even remains an issue at all. But this review is in regards purely to THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1, and on that basis, it truly does not feel like a complete movie. That said, taken for what it is, the movie is never anything less than a compelling experience, and it brilliantly sets the stage for what will (hopefully) be a satisfying conclusion next year.
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By Brett Blake I think it’s safe to say that Christopher Nolan’s INTERSTELLAR is not the immediate, out-of-the-gate masterpiece I expected it to be. An argument could certainly be made that it’s a very messy - almost disjointed - film, and it would be tough for me to refute that. It’s a movie full of rough edges, and for some people this might be enough to torpedo the entire enterprise. But when the movie does click, in moments of huge scope and ambition and emotion, it’s as impressive a cinematic experience as you’ll find this year. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of those moments as the movie probably needs to fully overcome its flaws. Centrally, the story revolves around Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former test pilot turned farmer in the not-too-distant future, a future where mankind (and Earth itself) is on a downward spiral due to increasing difficulty in growing food. He is presented an opportunity to command an interstellar mission to search for other hospitable worlds on which humanity might thrive, with the trade-off being that he must leave his family behind, including most notably his young daughter, the curious, science-hungry Murph (Mackenzie Foy). It is this father-daughter relationship that forms the movie’s biggest and most affecting throughline, and even as Coop does leave the confines of our solar system (via a mysterious wormhole near Saturn) with his team of astronauts, his family is foremost on his mind. What follows is spectacle of the highest order: an extraordinary visual portrait of space travel complete with awe-inspiring visuals and moments of sublime beauty. Allow us to get the good stuff out of the way first. Matthew McConaughey is simply fantastic in the lead role, imbuing Coop with his trademark aw shucks everyman charisma; he’s the perfect anchor for the grand-in-scope adventures on which the movie takes the audience, and he brings a degree of committed emotion to the story that pays off in big ways by the end of the film. He’s as great here as he was in his Academy Award-winning role last year in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. Around him, Nolan has assembled a rather terrific cast, but save for McConaughey, Anne Hathaway (as a fellow astronaut), and Jessica Chastain (in a role that some might consider a spoiler), most of the performers are kind of wasted, to be honest. The likes of Michael Caine, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, Ellen Burstyn, William Devane, and Topher Grace all show up at various points (and do fine work), but none of them get much to chew on (though, to be fair, Caine and Burstyn’s final moments in the film do have an impact). Indeed, young Mackenzie Foy’s Murph leaves a bigger impression than any of them, and the sequence in which Coop tells her he’s leaving - potentially forever - might be the most heart-rending scene of Christopher Nolan’s filmography, and Foy is wonderfully effective in it. As a purely visual, cinematic effort, INTERSTELLAR is an unqualified success. The special effects are often jaw-droppingly good, and the depiction of wormholes, black holes, and other space-time phenomena are marvelous. The cinematography and production design are among the very best of the year. Hans Zimmer’s score also deserves some special praise; for all the criticism (some deserved, some not) that he’s engendered over the years for popularizing “power anthems” and simple chords in film scores, Zimmer remains adept at finding the emotional centers of the films he works on. That’s never been more apparent than with INTERSTELLAR, for which Zimmer has crafted his finest score in years. The music perfectly captures both the majesty and suspense of space travel (he employs some wonderful, Philip Glass-ian repetitive phrases and motifs that give moments a kind of religiosity), but his work for the movie’s Cooper/Murph relationship is particularly effective, and it underlines the big moments of the film in grand fashion. But now we must begin to sort through the areas in which the movie doesn’t fully function. This is the first Nolan film that works better as an emotional experience than as a narrative one - the quest of one man to attempt to save humanity and still return home to his children is powerfully handled, but the specifics of that journey - plot-wise - leave something to be desired. So much of the movie’s second half hinges upon elements that feel quite arbitrary and contrived, motivated by nothing other than the screenplay’s need for them to happen. For example, there’s a late-in-the-game surprise guest star (an A-list Oscar-winner, no less) who pops up and proceeds to engage in a useless subplot that appears to exist for the sole purpose of adding some extra conflict and action to the story. It’s a quite literal out-of-nowhere development, narratively, and it also undermines the more optimistic view of humanity that the script appeared to be favoring up until that moment. Additionally, the specifics of the movie’s resolution (which I will avoid discussing in detail here) feel kind of equally arbitrary, and even a little bit silly. It’s a climax that hits effective beats in terms of emotion, and it involves heady ideas and cool visuals that I guarantee you’ve never seen presented in a movie before, but taken purely at face value, it’s a really strange sequence. Then you add to that the fact that Nolan chooses a really peculiar final moment on which to close the film and cut to the end credits (something he’s been a master at up until this point; think of the final shots of INCEPTION or any of the entries in his DARK KNIGHT Trilogy); if the movie had continued on for just one more brief scene, it could have sent the audience out of the theater on a much higher, more rousing note than the current, underwhelming final shot does. All of that is just symptomatic of the screenplay itself. Nolan and his co-writer, brother Jonathan Nolan, are more concerned with Coop’s family journey than they are with the specifics of crafting a satisfying narrative plot. Big revelations are glossed over, while others are over-explained. Again, as I said, it just feels kind of messy, which is quite surprising given the kind of clockwork precision found in the plots of all of Nolan’s previous films. Even saying all of that, there are still plenty of reasons I find myself admiring the film. It’s far and away the funniest movie to come from Nolan up to this point. Its ambition is laudable, as is its celebration of space flight, scientific curiosity, and mankind’s pioneering spirit. It’s also overflowing with complex, fascinating, and difficult ideas, something that certainly cannot be said for the majority of mainstream films released today. And it has a terrifically positive, warm inner core that so many science fiction films seem to lack in favor of cold and gloomy sterility. Christopher Nolan is at the very top of the list of my favorite directors currently working (right up there with Spielberg and Scorsese), so I wanted to walk out of this film with my first thought being, “This is my new favorite movie of the year.” That was not even close to my first thought, and after giving it a lot of intense contemplation, I have arrived at this: INTERSTELLAR is a stunning visual and emotional achievement weighed down by some questionable narrative/plot choices. It is absolutely worth seeing (and on the biggest screen you can find), but it is a little disappointing to report that it’s not the home run I was hoping it would be. |
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