31 Days of Horror: Antebellum

Inherent Vice

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Directed by Francis Lawrence.

2013. Rated PG-13, 146 minutes.

Cast:

Jennifer Lawrence

Josh Hutcherson

Woody Harrelson

Donald Sutherland

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Elizabeth Banks

Jeffrey Wright

Stanley Tucci

Lenny Kravitz

Liam Hemsworth

Jena Malone

Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta (Hutcherson) are the darlings of the twelve districts after winning the most recent Hunger Games in rather unconventional fashion. President Snow (Sutherland) is quite pissed about it. After all, it was their suddenly blooming love that forced the games to end in such an unorthodox fashion, leaving him and the Capitol looking a bit foolish. This wouldn't be quite so bad if his instincts didn't tell him, correctly, that their relationship is a fraud. He tells Katniss they better play nice for the cameras for the rest of their lives or heads will most definitely, and literally, roll. Those heads belong to her family and friends, of course. Since even that doesn't squash her defiant personality, and the people have made her a symbol of hope, President Snow changes the rules, putting her and Peeta into the next year's games. Their competition this time is made up of prior winners.

One of the things this movie does better than its predecessor is get to the point. That first flick took forever to actually get to the Hunger Games. I understand that in the first movie of a franchise, the setup typically does take longer than it does in sequels. However, in that first flick, it feels unnecessarily long. Like a dog dragging a broken leg, it limped along slowly while we watched Katniss is wardrobe, practicing, and being a talk show guest. Repeatedly. Thankfully, we spend much less time in talk show mode. Generally speaking, I love watching Stanley Tucci perform. In this series, as the host of said talk show, he's just an annoyance. I understand what is trying to be accomplished with this character. It's just not working for me.

Tucci aside, another plus for Catching Fire is the acting of its supporting cast. This more mature group gives us more interesting characters and better portrayals of them. The two standouts being Jeffrey Wright and Jena Malone. Malone gives us someone we're not sure how to take. Wright does what he normally does and disappears into his character. Another newcomer, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, is his usual excellent self as the Game Master. Among the returnees, Woody Harrelson and Donald Suther land are again very fun to watch. Surprisingy, so is Elizabeth Banks, once more in full drag-queen regalia.

Unfortunately, once we get to the games, it's the stretches between action where this movie, and the series as a whole, continues to fail. These are the times when Katniss and her allies plot the next move and get to know each other a little better. It should also be the time during which the tension is building until that next burst of excitement releases it. Instead, that tension dissipates as the scenes drag on, trying and failing, to establish emotional bonds between the characters. Part of this is due to Katniss herself. We know she cares about her friends and family. However, she comes across so coldly to everyone else that no one else's plight seems to resonate with her until it becomes an imminent part of her own survival. In other words, if she doesn't really care about them until the very moment her life depends on their ability, why should we?

Finally, where the first movie positions itself as social commentary, Catching Fire seems to lack any such aspirations. This is partly due to it being the second movie of what we know will be a quadrilogy. What it is trying to say may become more transparent after subsequent installments are released. No, I didn't read the books and please, do not explain it to me. Another reason is this movie's focus on being a "bigger" movie than its predecessor. It does more, but says less. Still, it is the doing more that makes this a more enjoyable movie than its predecessor. By breezing through the setup quicker, we get a more concise effort, even though it's actually a few minutes longer than the first film. We still hit some snags, but fans of the first should be pleased.

The Ruins

Directed by Carter Smith
2008. Rated R, 93 minutes.
Cast: 
Jena Malone
Jonathan Tucker
Shawn Ashmore
Laura Ramsey
Joe Anderson
Sergio Calderon
Dmitri Baveas

Two young couples on vacation in Cancun decide to spend their last day in town with a fellow tourist at an archeological dig of an ancient Mayan site. Weirdness and bloodiness ensues.

It does a nice job building momentum as the situation gets more and more desperate. Having one of our heroes as a med student (Tucker) is a stroke of genius. He quickly tries to grab the mantle of leadership and often imposes his will on others as his "skill" is sorely needed for their survival. However, the others attempt to rebel giving us a nice Lord of the Flies type friction amongst them. Gore is used sparingly but very effectively. We also get a pretty nice ending.

How and why this particular place got to be this particular way is a completely unexplained mystery. Since we're talking about killer plants here, I don't think a scene of one of the local yokels explaining the history would be too much to ask. Instead, we get a faceless group that seems to be a tribe guarding the outskirts of the site. None of them speak the least bit of English and none of our heroes speak Spanish. Therefore, the disconnect meant to add to the horror is merely an inconvenience for the audience.

Horror fans should have a look because it's a solid entry into the genre. That's not to say it's a classic or even remotely close to being one but I found it enjoyable.

MY SCORE: 6.5/10

Sucker Punch

Directed by Zack Snyder.

2011. Rated PG-13, 110 minutes.
Cast:
Emily Browning
Abbie Cornish
Jena Malone
Vanessa Hudgens
Jamie Chung
Carla Gugino
Oscar Isaac
Scott Glenn
Gerard Plunkett

After her mother dies, Baby Doll (Browning) is attacked by her stepdad. Obviously, it was a struggle for him to wait until his wife kicked because he goes on the prowl moments after the funeral. Apparently finding Baby Doll a bit more of a struggle than he wants just then, or perhaps saving her for later, he manages to lock her in her room and then starts in on her younger, much smaller sister. Since our heroine can’t let stepdad get his satisfaction she gets out of the room and gets a loaded gun and confronts this clown. Just to show she’s serious, Baby Doll fires off a warning shot. Oops. Little sis winds up all dead and stuff over in a corner. Daddy Dearest then has BD hauled off to an insane asylum run by some shady characters. He even slips the guy in charge a few extra bucks to make sure she gets lobotomized in five days. I hate when that happens.

All of this takes place before and right after the opening credits. Truthfully, only the end result is relevant. The elaborate set up is interesting, but unnecessary. She could’ve simply been perceived as crazy and arrived at exactly the same place. However, elaborately is the only way this movie does anything. Not surprising since it has the same director, it has a look reminiscent of 300 with nearly as much slo-mo, super slo-mo and bullet-time effects. The heavy metal soundtrack blares brazenly while things onscreen hiss, boom, shatter and pop. All the while, the camera follows a team of girls draped in fetishistic and/or militaristic garb and kicking all sorts of robot tail. If you let it, it can be big fun. That is, until you get to the end wonder what you just watched.

Speaking wondering what you just watched, where do the robots come from? Well, shortly and suddenly our insane asylum transforms into a brothel. I’ll let you figure out the how and why of that one on your own. Anyoo, BD is made to dance. In a total shock for this movie, there’s no pole involved. Still, when she dances everyone in her onscreen audience is so mesmerized they cease all bodily function except for watching her. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we never see BD dance. Along with her, we enter the dreamworld in the trance she falls into. Here, she receives orders from Wise Man (Glenn) about the next object she tries to obtain by fighting her and the team’s way through hordes of robots. By the way, if you couldn’t figure it out the team is made up of other girls in the looney bin. Each object gets the whole crew closer to escape from the real asylum. Get it? The actual connection is made a little better than that, but it’s still convoluted.

Overall, Sucker Punch is a fun looking mess. The visuals are a treat, but the pieces to the story don’t quite fit in a cohesive manner. First off, there are too many of them. A surplus of things that could’ve been discarded are kept. Conversely, we get the feeling plenty of things that should’ve been kept are thrown out. Second, none of the characters are written well enough for us to really care what happens to them. They’re just mannequins in the window striking poses appropriate for the gear they’re wearing. Worst of all, the movie is horribly inconsistent about what happens to people in the room when BD dances. Who is and isn’t effected changes based on what’s convenient for the plot at any given moment. Finally, I have a question. Why on God’s green earth did Zack Snyder allow Carla Gugino to keep going with her ridiculously bad Russian accent after the first day of shooting? For that alone, he should be sucker punched.