Film Review: The Hunger Games

Certificate: 12A (intense violent thematic material and disturbing images - all involving teens)
Directed By: Gary Ross
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Sam Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Wes Bentley, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Toby Jones
Budget: $78 million
Runtime: 142 minutes
Trailer: Watch

The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the three-part fictional series penned by Suzanne Collins, set in a post-apocalyptic world where two children chosen are from each of the twelve districts are forced by the state to compete in a battle to the death. When young Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) volunteers herself as District Twelve's representative in place of her sister at the annual Hunger Games, she embarks on a rigorous training programme with a drunken tutor (Harrelson) in the slim hope coming out the brutal contest as the sole survivor. All cheery stuff then.

Collins' work has often been compared to author Koushun Takami's novel Battle Royale (also adapted to film by Kinji Fukasaku), in fact resembling the concept so strongly that The Hunger Games has invited criticisms of being a direct copy of it. Certainly, despite Collins' adamance that she had never heard of the Japanese cult classic before writing, the conceptual similarities are undeniable. Indeed, the ideas and themes aren't new, inviting comparisons to earlier fictional works such as William Golding's Lord of the Flies or Stephen King's The Running Man. Indeed, this isn't an original piece by any stretch of the imagination.

The premise can be a little difficult to swallow. We are told that there was a big war where afterward as you do, people decided to hold barbaric sacrificial games in order to ensure it doesn't happen again. Riiighhht. There's no real purpose to it, no real justification save some twaddle about remembering this unexplained cataclysmic event (oh the irony), other than it for whatever reason satiates the sadistic apetites of Panem's elites (the fractured nation which rose from the ashes of the former USA). Annoyingly, The Hunger Games never explains how its scenario came to be other than suggesting this past 'event' somehow manifested into a dystopian society where children are forced to kill one another. Such a desultory leap in logic creates an air of incredulity, further compounded by the fact that this supposed future seems to have done away with even most basic of household conveniences and postmodern norms. Such an 'intellectual quandary' only serves to beg for answers as to why. Yes, one might argue that this sort of thing shouldn't be considered in a coming of age teen-series based on a pubescent girl thrust into a death match, but such misnomers make the whole plot feel bitty.

When events do finally take to the battlefield, an enclosed forest space teeming with all sorts of weaponry and genetically modified nasties resembling Zool's hellhounds from Ghostbusters, The Hunger Games instigates an annoying habit of flip-flopping its narrative which one can only assume was intended to be dramatic. Alliances between combatants are forged, and changed, then changed again as the games' inflexible rule of only one being able to survive supposedly creates false pretences among the competitors' motivations. This is largely illustrated through Peeta (Hutcherson), the fellow citizen from District Twelve lucky enough to win the Hunger Games lottery. But rather than create a satiating mystery to our protagonist's inclinations, the constant dithering and failure to take a firm line with any story arc becomes frustrating.

If you're looking for something more meaningful here, one could point to a poignant parallel with today's 99% in the impoverished districts of Panem and the 1% living in the lavish Capitol. In a throwback to something resembling Louis XIV's court, an aristocratic Europe with computers, The Hunger Games dwells mercilessly on the privileged's enslavement of the wider populace dwelling in the twelve districts. It certainly invites some evocative comparisons to today, and actually paints a somewhat disquieting picture on the hopelessness of the average human being in its dreary divide of circumscribed citizens and their opulent oppressors. Ironically perhaps though is how The Hunger Games actually conforms to the empty spectacles designed to distract those dissatisfied with our current situation. It's very easy to become seduced by the notion that this film is actually a much deeper commentary on things like violence, inequality, feminism and an effete media elite. The reality however is that it doesn't actually have much to say on any of these issues, merely raising them in some sort of populist appeal without adding any substance.

Regardless of unoriginality, this is still a very well filmed piece of work. The Hunger Games neatly conveys the idea of gory teen violence with smoke and mirrors, carefully disguising brutality as a suggestion rather than something outright visual. Indeed, all the gore and sex in the books have been cleverly, if not impressively toned down here. Much of the kids bludgeoning each other over the head with bricks is alluded to rather than the actual observable crunch into bone while any sexuality is all but censored. Not that the fate of any of their characters seem to matter much anyway. A lot about The Hunger Games feels perfunctory where, particularly in the case of Woody Harrelson's Haymitch, set up as one of the most interesting characters, is horribly underused. You will find yourself caring little for their journey's or wrench at their inevitable fates. This is true even of Katniss, a seemingly blank sheet who elicits very little in way of personality. Yes, she might be overawed by events, or maybe an example of how girls can also be stoic, but good god girl show us something other than the fact you can use a bow and arrow.

For all its wheezing and allusions to something deeper, you can't help but feel that The Hunger Games amounts to nothing more than a spectacle. It merely toys with grittiness, avoids real brutality when it comes down to it, and never really pushes the boundaries of any issues or themes it raises. The fact that it goes on for two hours and twenty-two minutes like this can also be tedious. Following in the footsteps of Harry Potter and Twilight, it remains to be seen if it will reach the same dizzying heights, although the odds probably aren't in its favour.

Film Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

With the Cold War in full swing, a botched covert operation to find a double-agent placed within the highest echelons of British intelligence costs head-honcho 'Control' (Hurt) and right-hand man Smiley (Oldman) their jobs. When new information from a rogue operative (Hardy) reignites rumours of a traitor, Smiley is pulled from retirement to spy on the spies and smoke out the mole.

Upon setting up his task force, Smiley learns 'Control' had long harboured fears of a spy within the ranks, distrusting even those in the inner circle. 'Control's' suspicions are visualised through pictures of his suspects taped to chess pieces and given code names from a nursery rhyme. 'Tinker' is the career driven Percy Alleline (Jones); 'Tailor' the mordant Bill Haydon (Firth); 'Soldier' a breviloquent Roy Bland (Hinds); 'Poor Man' persnickety Hungarian immigrant Toby Esterhase (Dencik); and finally amongst 'Control's' suspects miserable sack of spuds George Smiley himself, designated 'Beggarman'.  Aptly nicknamed 'The Circus', they are the high-value pieces at the top of MI6, each operating in accordance of their assigned chess pieces in a grand game of strategy. Others such as Smiley's aide, Peter Guilliam (Cumberbatch), are soon roped into this game of cat and mouse as things become infinitely more complex and dangerous. No chess game would be complete of course without its sacrificial pawns. Mark Strong's Jim Prideaux and Tom Hardy's Ricki Tarr; men who do 'The Circus'' dirty work, complete the essential piece of the puzzle. And suddenly the game is afoot!

And some puzzle it is. Adapted from famous spy novelist John LeCarré's book of the same name, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ensnares its audience in a tense world of old boys clubs and mountains of dusty files. It is a merciless roller coaster of savage bureaucratic espionage and infighting, where trust is always a misnomer and nothing is ever as it seems. And for a spy film which omits the frantic rush to stop a ticking bomb or some other calamitous mayhem, there is always a very real sense of danger and foreboding. There's so much uncertainty and paranoia floating about that the subsequent climate this creates is palpably volatile. While very understated, it's also very real. You really just don't know what the next twist is, and that's frighteningly dangerous in its own right.

It's this atmosphere, buoyed by its murky seventies Cold War setting, which makes Tinker Tailor a thoroughly absorbing experience. Rather than feeling dated or stuck in bygone era, this is more a homage than an attempt to invigorate a period for the here and now. It's unashamedly grey and brown, set firmly in a place where time doesn't flow, but is frozen. The characters are also part of this forlorn tapestry where then fashionable brown and orange wallpaper reflects the ribald, exhausted looking priests of British intelligence. It's a rich, nuanced world created here by Swedish director Thomas Alfredson (Let The Right One), inviting an investment where you want to know who's doing what to whom and why. While the drab aesthetic is without doubt entrancing, it's of critical importance to heed another MI6 employee who uttered those infamous words "do pay attention double-O-seven". One must constantly concentrate throughout Tinker Tailor, a film so vast in its complexity of twists, turns, counter-twists and counter-turns that even Otto von Bismarck would be left scratching his head. Yes it's dense, difficult and depressing to follow at the best of times, but like in real spy-dom a fastidious attention to detail will yield rewards.

Where the mystery of the mole is engaging in itself, perhaps more enthralling are the nuances of the men involved. One might expect that the collective which constitute 'The Circus' would be the staunchest defenders of democracy and the Western way of life, patriotic chaps who represent the best of British. What's engrossing is how much further from this ideal these men could be. Instead we have alarmingly fallible men disillusioned and cynical of those in power who, as a consequence, are liable to becoming unprincipled traitors to those that may offer a better deal. It is a chord which would have resonated with its Cold War audience of the time, an idea that the West was a spent force and had no more to offer other than the gratification of greed - an amorality eschewed by its ascetic rivals in the East. It was a very real fear that such exotic influences could be allowed to fester at the core of society, an indolence to protect a system that offered little, yet where a failure to do so could let in something far worse. The film's ashen-grey setting of seventies London does much to enhance this feeling of a decadent West about to cave on itself. If you know the history of the period - the rise of trade unions, three-day weeks, power cuts, IMF bailouts - then you can begin to see why no one would want to invest in a nation, a system, which offered nothing. Britain wasn't alone in its problems. American reputation lay in tatters for its war in Vietnam while CIA coups brought people like Pinochet to power. At home it faced the most famous political scandal of the twentieth-century, Watergate. The seventies were very much a period that shook the central tennets of Western civilisation and while you might not think much of Tinker Tailor's archaism it is still quite possible to draw parallels to today. Once again confidence in the system has dramatically plummeted in the face of joblessness, corruption scandals and high bonuses for those who messed up in the first place. Despite being set in a world structured along fundamentally different lines, perhaps ironically this bears more relevance now than any time since.

The film's other underlying current, betrayal, is one which permeates throughout on multiple levels. From betrayal of queen and country to that of personal relationships and self, a vivid picture of the world these ringmasters live in soon emerges. Here sexuality is used to emphasise this, an issue which the book skirts over but one which Alfredson chose to add to great effect. For example, Smiley's wife Ann is shown to be a serial cheater, apportioning favours to close work colleague, Haydon. Ricki Tarr meanwhile forms a connection with a woman on a secret mission abroad, promising her a new life in the West only to fail in saving her from the torturous clutches of the KGB. Hard-as-nails field agent Jim Prideaux, best friends with Haydon since their time at an all boys school, is driven to extreme actions more becoming of a bond which supersedes friendship. But while sex does much to highlight this theme of betrayal what it shows more of is how this group of people, these intelligence deities who preside over the nation's safety and are the frontline against the threat of an international communist conspiracy are just as prone to error as anyone else. Perhaps even more so. They are mortals, as frail and susceptible to emotion as the next person, and this provides a strange yet fascinating twist for an otherwise emotionally cold film.

As one might gather, Tinker Tailor has managed to assemble a sterling ensemble of some of Britain's finest actors. Smiley wasn't the easiest role for Oldman to fill, given that LeCarré's book was made into a BBC miniseries where the character became inextricably linked with an impeccable portrayal by Alec Guinness. Indeed, so synonymous did Guinness become with the book's inscrutable protagonist that Tinker Tailor has drawn some skepticism. Oldman fortunately is superb, eerily motionless but in possession of a piercing mind as he pulls off stoicism in an amoral world of double-crossing and egotistical opportunists. He is a very British type of hero - tired, colourless, and defeated in demeanour, yet despite his nonchalance and drab appearance is a master of his trade - someone you underestimate at your peril. Cumberbatch's recent meteoric rise to fame is once again fully justified here as is another rising star, Tom Hardy, showing a versatility in a role which couldn't be further removed from his latest character, Bane, in the upcoming Dark Knight Rises. As we've come to expect from John Hurt his vitriolic 'Control' is excellent while the time travelling Colin Firth does what he does best, seamlessly blending into yet another period drama. Likewise Mark Strong, not a villain for once, yet again turns in a 'strong' performance.

In the past few years we've had the explosive antics of Bond and Bourne, but this, without any hint of things going boom or martial arts madness, could easily be considered more exciting then either of them. There's no Pussy Galore, Aston Martins fitted with ejector seats or exotic locales here - only piles of disheveled documents situated in drab London settings and dinky little caravans. It's the cerebral spy thriller, a 'whodunnit' that would test even the combined grey matter of Poirot and Marple. Admittedly it can be a little ponderous, and perhaps the biggest let down to this clever caper is its final reveal. While commendable in its lack of histrionics it is perhaps a bit too understated. However, considering this is a film inhabited by deeply flawed monomaniacs and quislings afflicted with paranoia and sociopathy, this won't stop you from being sucked into its smart and dreary world.

Film Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

Patriotic Steve Rogers (Evans) is repeatedly declared 'unfit' to serve his country's military during World War II. When his gumptious attempts to sign up impress ex-pat German scientist Dr. Erskine (Tucci) Rogers is inducted into a top-secret army experiment. Injected with a Super-Soldier Serum (tm) the "90-pound asthmatic" is instantaneously transformed from weakling into a new breed of warrior who project overseer Colonel Phillips (Jones) declares will "personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of hell".

Created in 1941, Captain America was one of the first comic book heroes intended as an explicit patriotic symbol and piece of political propaganda where the cover of its first edition pictured the hero draped in stars and stripes punching Adolf Hitler square on the jaw. The film acknowledges this premise as the shield wielding embodiment of American values takes on Nazis in the last prequel before Rogers is reunited with super-friends Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk in the upcoming Avengers movie. However, this franchise's steeped history in overt, flag-waving patriotism doesn't seem so in-your-face here, impressively toned down for international audiences. As a testament to this the film was even simply released as "The First Avenger" without the Captain America prefix in some countries. Instead we seem to be presented with a super soldier who merely happens to be American, a welcome humility given the subject matter. However, in a sense this is also part of the film's downfall. Captain America was defined by his staunch stance against fascism and the fact there is scarcely a mention of the ideological divides that spawned the Cap means his identity and consequently the ideal he is supposed to be fighting for becomes somewhat of a tepid misnomer. In this way the purpose of his existence is densely and lethargically clear; The Avengers. Regardless, Captain America: The First Avenger is still an enjoyable popcorn flick which rests reasonably well on its own merits. And it's a good job too because by this stage there's little more the Cap can do to heighten anticipation for The Avengers movie anyway.

When Erskine is assassinated by a Nazi agent the US military don't quite know what to do with Rogers. As such he's treated as a pinup boy, relegated to propagandist showmanship raising war bonds at home instead of being given the chance to show off his new super attributes. This constitutes the first half of the film and while it may sound dull, it is this buildup to before Rogers being thrown into action which is the most enthralling part of Captain America, excellently paced and genuinely involving. However, things get a little bit ridiculous when, without any apparent combat training, Rogers suddenly launches an audacious one-man rescue mission behind enemy lines to liberate his best mate. Unfortunately here, in the second half of the film, Captain America begins to struggle against choppy waters as questionable plot holes quickly become entangled with sheer outrageousness. It's a bit of a shame for a movie that starts so brightly whereby the time everything is said and done you can't help feeling you've almost been robbed.

Like X-Men: First Class, this is a wacky piece of alternate history which features little recognisable to the real historical timeline. Captain America finds himself up not against Hitler, but a Colonel Schmidt (Weaving), head of the Nazi's scientific deep-research arm, HYDRA. Schmidt is the Yin to Rogers' Yang, also having dosed himself with a prototype serum leaving him with some horrendous physical defects earning him the nickname 'Red Skull'. Schmidt is obsessed with the occult, allowing for the film to branch out along that well-worn pseudo-historical timeline of Nazis dabbling in mystical powers (see Raiders of the Lost Ark or Hellboy for example). Schmidt harvests the power of an Asgardian (Thor's home) device known as the 'Tesseract' which enables him to bestow his followers with frickin' laser beams. Yes, you read that right; Nazis with ray guns. But then no one said this was a History Channel documentary. Indeed, HYDRA seems more like a world-wide criminal organisation that James Bond would have to deal with more than anything to do with Nazis.

However, at least Captain America stays true to its comic book sensibilities. Consequently it is comfortable being as stupid as it is, and for that you can't really fault it. In other ways it is also a vast improvement on the origins stories of Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk. One of the main reasons for this is that it has the most palpable villain out of the lot, a key component missing from the others which left them feeling a little bit irresolute. Then again you can't really go wrong with history's most reviled jackbooted thugs as Weaving's Schmidt and his sidekick, Dr. Zola, played by Toby Jones, once again illustrate why Nazis are the best boogeymen in Hollywood. Everyone else isn't half bad either. Evans is convincing as the humble stalwart Cap while the rest of the supporting cast are reasonably effusive. Tommy Lee Jones has fun with Colonel Phillips while fans who've been paying close attention to the Marvel series will be arrided by Dominic Cooper's involvement as Howard Stark (that's Iron Man's Dad for the uninitiated). However, Peggy (Atwell), a sassy British intelligence officer who acts as Rogers' love interest, seems a little bit lost, her place in the grander scheme of things somewhat undefined. It's never quite clear what her role is or even what she's doing there in the first place.

Captain America: The First Avenger is several things; silly, by far the most violent marvel movie to date (more death than in any other comic book film I've seen), but also possibly the most enjoyable origins story out of all the Avengers prequels. Technically it's more faulted than either Iron Man or Thor, but it is also the most unassuming and straightforward, something one can only admire its guts for. At least it's pure in its intentions and in this sense having a solid cast and a solid(ish) script is enough. It's just a shame that it gets a bit wobbly in places rather than delivering a killer blow to make it something really super.