The Dressmaker

For F*** Magazine

THE DRESSMAKER

Director : Jocelyn Moorhouse

Cast : Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Caroline Goodall, Kerry Fox, Sacha Horler

Genre : Drama

Run Time : 119 mins

Opens : 28 January 2016

Rating : PG13 (Some Coarse Language and Some Sexual References)

Revenge never goes out style in this dark comedy-drama. It is 1951 and after a long absence, Mrytle “Tilly” Dunnage returns to her hometown of Dungatar in the Australian outback to care for her ailing mother Molly (Davis). Tilly was accused of murder at the age of 10 and was exiled from the town. In the intervening years, she has become an expert designer and seamstress, having worked in Europe for high fashion houses such as Balenciaga. Teddy McSwiney (Hemsworth), a childhood friend, goes about romancing Tilly, though all the other residents of Dungatar regard her with suspicion. After Tilly helps general store clerk Gertrude Pratt (Snook) undergo a dramatic makeover, the women of the town become infatuated with Tilly’s couture creations. With the help of flamboyant police Sergeant Horatio Farrat (Weaving), Tilly uncovers the truth behind what happened all those years ago and enacts her vengeance on the townsfolk.

            The Dressmaker is adapted from Rosalie Ham’s 2000 novel of the same name. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse co-wrote the script with her husband P.J. Hogan; a film version seeing the light of day after an earlier attempt in the mid-2000s fell through. A cursory glance at the title or poster might mislead one to believe that this is a run of the mill chick flick. For better or worse (mostly worse), The Dressmaker isn’t. Beneath the surface of immaculately-tailored dresses, an unsettling nastiness is bubbling over and The Dressmaker has quite the caustic edge. It’s a twisted tale of small town revenge that feels more like an askew Western than it does a period countryside romance. Moorhouse herself describes it as “Unforgiven with a sewing machine”.

            The Dressmaker is refreshing in how different it is, but it is also vexingly difficult to place. There are wild tonal inconsistencies: this is a film where a woman trips over a poofy skirt as she tries to keep her fiancé from seeing her in an embarrassing get-up, a policeman drapes himself in pink fabric and traipses about to the Flower Duet from Lakmé and someone’s anterior tibial artery gets severed. Moorhouse’s fearlessness in going full-tilt weird is alternately novel and off-putting. The odd combination of broad slapstick and some shockingly dark moments makes it difficult to get involved in the story, the overall effect vaguely alienating.

            Winslet as Tilly is inspired casting and her performance anchors the sometimes-shaky film that surrounds her. Her turn as an old-school femme fatale with revenge on the brain is pitch-perfect and she has poise to spare as she struts about in an array of striking ensembles created by costume designer Margot Wilson. It is heightened and exaggerated, as the rest of the movie is, but Winslet manages to find some nuance here. Davis is captivating as Tilly’s dementia-addled mother, who seems at first to be little more than a crotchety old lady who’s not altogether there, but eventually emerges as a complex, sympathetic figure. Davis imbues the movie with genuine pathos – there are raw emotional moments which feel out of place given the absurdity of it all, but Davis makes them work.

            Hemsworth fares considerably worse as Teddy, the rugged, dashing farmboy. While he does provide a good amount of eye candy, he’s completely mismatched with Winslet, the burgeoning relationship unconvincing as a result. Teddy is also supposed to be around the same age as Tilly. Hemsworth is 25 and Winslet is 40; it just doesn’t work onscreen. Weaving is quite delightful in a colourful supporting role, his cross-dressing Sergeant Farrat possibly having an even greater penchant for quality women’s wear than Anthony “Tick” Belrose did in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. A number of Australian actresses including Sarah Snook, Sacha Horler, Alison Whyte and Julia Blake help populate Dungatar with the peculiar people who call the town home.

            The Dressmaker is an odd bird, a costume comedy-drama dipped in acid. Its third act is especially bleak, and that’s when everything comes unstitched. Director Moorhouse brings a great deal of style to the proceedings and this is a distinct approach to the source material, but The Dressmaker is too inconsistent and tonally confused to work.

Summary: While Kate Winslet shines in the title role, The Dressmaker’s peculiar, unpalatable sensibilities make it a poor fit.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

For F*** Magazine

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 

Director : Francis Lawrence
Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Natalie Dormer, Donald Sutherland
Genre : Fantasy/Adventure
Run Time : 2 hrs 17 mins
Opens : 19 November 2015
Rating : PG13 (Some Violence)

The Mockingjay sings her last in the conclusion of the Hunger Games saga. The nation of Panem is in the throes of a revolutionary war, with Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) continuing to bear the burden of being the symbolic figurehead of the uprising, the Mockingjay. Katniss teams up with a group of her closest allies – including Gale (Hemsworth), Finnick (Claflin), Cressida (Dormer) and Peeta (Hutcherson) – to infiltrate the palace of President Snow (Sutherland) and assassinate him. After an extended period of captivity in the Capitol, Peeta is deeply shaken by the psychological torture he was subjected to and becomes hostile towards Katniss. District 13’s President Alma Coin (Moore) and her right-hand man Plutarch (Hoffman) are counting on this final assault to be the tipping point that allows them to overthrow Snow. As Snow becomes increasingly obsessed with destroying Katniss and putting a stop to the revolution, Katniss realises that as high as the stakes were before, they are ever higher now, with the future of Panem in her hands.

                The expectations are high for the final instalment in the Hunger Games film series, not just because of the massive following the Suzanne Collins novels and the films themselves have gained, but because the filmmakers went the route of splitting the last book into two films, increasing the build-up for Part 2. Typically, movies that close out a blockbuster series promise colossal, epic battles and a surfeit of spectacle. For both better and worse, Mockingjay Part 2 takes a different route. The emphasis is on the politics, an element which has set the Hunger Games series apart from most teen-aimed properties. From the word “go”, this is an appropriately bleak affair, an unrelenting downer. True, The Hunger Games was never meant to be particularly happy or uplifting, but Mockingjay – Part 2 will alienate or even confuse viewers who aren’t 100% invested in what has come before. Audiences are expected to be familiar with the preceding films and, preferably, the books as well.

                The Hunger Games series has taken a considerable amount of risks that have been rewarded critically and at the box office. After all, the basic premise of the first movie/book is a tournament in which kids kill each other for the entertainment of the masses. Finally overthrowing the tyrannical rule of President Snow should be a rousing triumph, but for a society as far gone as Panem, a quick fix simply won’t cut it. That the film not only acknowledges this but delves into the myriad ramifications of the revolution is admirably mature, if not viscerally exciting. Particularly during the first act, things can be a bit of a slog, and Mockingjay Part 2 struggles to gain momentum. The action sequences, in which Katniss and the District 13 Unit have to navigate booby-trapped stretches of the Capitol and fend off all and sundry threats that are flung at them, feel more perfunctory than truly thrilling.

                Jennifer Lawrence’s ever-rising star has paralleled Katniss’ journey from starving District 12 girl to bearer of the Mockingjay mantle, though we imagine being J-Law in real life is generally more fun than being Katniss. In a way, it’s a good thing that Jennifer Lawrence won’t be playing Katniss indefinitely and that she’s given an opportunity to see the character’s arc through to completion. Even more than in the earlier instalments, Mockingjay Part 2 asks the question “is this too much for one girl to handle?” point blank, answers “yes” and shows us all the ways in which it is too much. In the film’s opening scene, Katniss is trying to speak as she is being tended to by a nurse, after Peeta nearly crushed her windpipe in the previous film. There are many films about “finding one’s voice”, but instead of manufactured optimism, the Hunger Games series serves up unflinching brutality and Jennifer Lawrence’s final bow as one of this generation’s defining heroes is expectedly affecting and stirring.

                We also get a resolution to the love triangle, which director Francis Lawrence tries his darndest to couch as something secondary to the turning cogs of revolution. The wounded, feral quality that Peeta takes on is heart-rending and does give Hutcherson more shades to play, as well as switching up the dynamic between Peeta and Katniss. Gale’s bond with Katniss as a childhood hunting buddy is played up a little more in this one; Hemsworth has repeatedly demonstrated that he’s not an actor with immense range but not too much is demanded from him here.

There is quite literally an army of supporting players, so it is natural that some will get shorter shrift than others. This reviewer did enjoy that the film is packed with badass female characters in addition to Katniss, including Dormer’s Cressida, Patina Miller’s Commander Paylor, Gwendoline Christie’s Commander Lyme, Michelle Forbes’ Lieutenant Jackson, Jena Malone’s Johanna Mason and Moore’s President Coin. Moore is especially fun to watch as we see President Coin making increasingly questionable but decently justified decisions. Elizabeth Banks, clad in increasingly fanciful ensembles, seems to be crying out from all the greyness that surrounds her. Sutherland proves he was the ideal choice for President Snow from the beginning, exuding a deep malice that is several layers past idle moustache-twirling villainy and making us all the more eager to see Snow get his comeuppance.

In an age where series finale blockbusters seem almost mandated to include no-holds-barred clashes of epic proportions, the Hunger Games series’ more cerebral conclusion is welcome. However, if one has a particularly short attention span and isn’t fully immersed in the world of Panem as established by the earlier films, it is possible to become bored and frustrated by the ponderous proceedings. This is sure to be a smash hit (at least until Star Wars invades cinemas), so we hope Lionsgate doesn’t try to futilely stretch things out with spinoffs and a reboot, though, like the fall of Panem, that does seem depressingly inevitable.

Summary: The Mockingjay’s last song is resonant if not especially rousing, the final chapter of the Hunger Games series largely satisfying but at times overwhelmingly downbeat.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

For F*** Magazine

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1

Director : Francis Lawrence

Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Natalie Dormer, Willow Shields, Woody Harrelson, Evan Ross, Elizabeth Banks, Sam Claflin, Robert Knepper, Gwendoline Christie, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Stanley Tucci

Genre : Fantasy/Adventure

Rating : PG13 (Some Violence) 

Run time: 123 mins

It’s time to raise the three-finger District 12 salute and whistle that four-note motif again because another Hunger Games movie is in theatres. Following her actions in the Quarter Quell, Katniss (Lawrence) has been whisked away to the secret stronghold of District 13. Her best friend Gale (Hemsworth), sister Prim (Shields) and mother (Paula Malcomson) are among the survivors from the Capitol’s bombing of District 12 taking refuge in 13. President Alma Coin (Moore), along with Plutarch (Hoffman), is in the midst of staging a revolution, calling on Katniss to become the face of the uprising. Despite being reluctant to after the trauma she experienced in the arena, Katniss assumes the role of the symbolic “Mockingjay”. Peeta (Hutcherson), who couldn’t be rescued, is held in the Capitol and forced by President Snow (Sutherland) to make televised appearances exhorting a ceasefire. Because of this, he is branded a traitor by the revolutionaries, but it only strengthens Katniss’ desire to rescue him and the other victors even more.

            Mockingjay – Part 1 has followed in the footsteps of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises by going the “last book adapted into two movies” route. Both Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Breaking Dawn – Part 1 did a lot of treading water in padding things out. While Mockingjay – Part 1 fares far better than Breaking Dawn thanks to its denser plot, there’s still a degree of disappointment to be had from sitting through two hours of set-up, even if it is pretty good set-up. Introducing audiences to the subterranean District 13, there is the credible sense that this revolution is coming to a head. Moving past the Games themselves, we get to see more of the other districts, including the lumber-producing District 7, and power-generating District 5 with its massive hydroelectric dam. There is an increased sense of scale without it feeling like bloated and empty spectacle. There’s also more of the helicrafts in action, two of which Katniss shoots down with her bow and arrow.

            The film still is character-driven, Jennifer Lawrence returning to her star-making role with more of the drive, indignant determination and just the right amount of vulnerability she brought to the first and second films. Unlike a number of young adult novel adaptations, Mockingjay – Part 1 does a good job at establishing that there is much more to the story and the world than the protagonist’s personal struggles and heartache, without downplaying the importance of that. The premise of the franchise is televised bloodsport in which teenagers kill each other for the entertainment of the elite and to keep the masses in line. The role of media manipulation in shaping the perceptions of the public gets further explored here with the introduction of Natalie Dormer’s Cressida, a Capitol film director who defects to District 13. That the resulting propaganda films or “propos” end up looking like movie trailers is a sly, effective touch without having it go all Starship Troopers on us.

            The politics of The Hunger Games is one of the key components that gives it an edge over other film series aimed at a similar demographic. Julianne Moore retains her stern exterior (looking more than a little like Ysanne Isard from the Star Wars expanded universe) but plays a warmer, kinder authority figure than moviegoers are used to seeing her as. Both skilled actors, she and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman make for believable collaborating revolutionaries – this marks their fourth time co-starring in a movie. The film is dedicated to Hoffman’s memory and while he completed shooting all his scenes for Part 1, some of Plutarch’s scenes in Part 2 will have to be distributed to other characters.

            Much of the emotional content of the first two films was derived from the relationship between Katniss and Peeta and director Francis Lawrence uses the fact that the two characters are separated to generate a good amount of tension and anguish. Peeta being used as the Capitol’s new mouthpiece in his interviews with Ceasar Flickerman (Tucci) is contrasted and compared with how Katniss takes up the mantle of the Mockingjay for District 13. The role of Liam Hemsworth’s Gale is also expanded. It seems director Lawrence is all too aware that there are still detractors who dismiss this series as mopey teen romance, so scenes in which the love triangle is addressed appear sparingly.

            If Catching Fire was analogous to Empire Strikes Back, then Mockingjay – Part 1 is like if Return of the Jedi ended right after the escape from Jabba’s clutches. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but there’s no denying that the climactic sequence, which director Lawrence has said was inspired by Zero Dark Thirty, feels like in belongs in the middle of a movie. Still, fans of the first two films are most likely more than willing to wait a year for the series’ conclusion and there is enough that takes place here to enticingly set the stage for the finale.

Summary: Despite suffering from “Part 1-of-a-two-parter-adaptation-itis”, the politics of Mockingjay and the turning gears of the revolution make this an intelligent, absorbing entry in the series.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

For F*** Magazine

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE

Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast:   Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Lenny Kravitz, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Toby Jones, Woody Harrelson, Jena Malone, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amanda Plummer, Lynn Cohen, Patrick St. Esprit, Meta Golding, Bruno Gunn, Alan Ritchson, E. Roger Mitchell, Maria Howell, Stephanie Leigh Schlund, Sam Claflin, Jeffrey Wright
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
Run Time: 146 mins
Opens: 21 November 2013
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)

2012 probably saw an uptick in the number of kids signing up for archery classes, characters like Merida from Brave and Hawkeye from The Avengers making a weapon dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic cool again. The figure who played the biggest part in this was Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the blockbuster adaptation of the first book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series who returns in Catching Fire.



Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta (Hutcherson) come home triumphant from the 74th annual Hunger Games and embark on a victory tour throughout the twelve districts of Panem, leaving behind loved ones including Katniss’ sweetheart Gale (Hemsworth). The autocratic ruler of Panem, President Snow (Sutherland), sees that Katniss and Peeta have given the masses hope and might have sown the seeds for a revolution. Together with the new gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee (Hoffman), he plans for Katniss and Peeta to take the fall in as dramatic a way as possible. For the 75th Hunger Games, the tributes are reaped from existing winners – meaning Katniss and Peeta are plunged back into the lion’s den and pitted against experienced killers. The pair work to form an alliance with the other tributes, including the dashing Finnick (Claflin), the elderly Mags (Cohen), rebellious and unpredictable Johanna (Malone), and the tech-savvy duo of Beetee (Wright) and Wiress (Plummer). Mentor Haymitch (Harrelson) warns that “there are no winners, only survivors” – and Katniss and Peeta learn just how right he is.



Young adult novels and film adaptations of said novels have earned something of a bad reputation, often associated with shallow romance and the inane cries of “woe is me”. The Hunger Games is a series that is firmly about something, exploring the idea of violence as the opiate of the masses through the eyes of a strong, relatable heroine. This film delves deeper into the futuristic dystopia that is Panem, having established what the Hunger Games are and being able to spend more time further developing the characters of Katniss and Peeta. Director Francis Lawrence (no relation to star Jennifer), known for films like Constantine, I Am Legend and Water for Elephants, takes the directorial baton from Gary Ross with an assured turn behind the camera, working from an eloquently-adapted screenplay by Oscar-winners Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt (credited here as Michael DeBruyn).



The immense success of the first film allowed this one a bigger budget, $140 million in comparison to $78 million. While an excellent film, The Hunger Games did suffer a tad in its production values and this film is definitely an improvement in that regard. For example, the murderous mandrills look better than the wolf-like Muttations in the first film. However, the film is not spectacle-driven and it is a good one and half hours before the 75th Hunger Games actually begin. The focus of this one is the aftermath of the events of the previous film and the toll that that experience has had on Katniss and Peeta, Katniss in particular emerging as a shell-shocked veteran, haunted by the carnage she bore witness to first-hand. It is to the filmmakers’ credit that just because the games haven’t begun proper, it doesn’t mean the proceedings are boring. Moments that are equal parts intense and emotional, including a scene in which Gale is flogged in public by the totalitarian “peacekeepers”, are not in short supply.



Jennifer Lawrence, now an Oscar-winner for The Silver Linings Playbook, makes a confident return to the role that made her a superstar. The character doesn’t sit around moping and licking her wounds, Lawrence excelling at showing the conflict between Katniss’ true anguish and the public façade she has to don in the midst of this life-or-death situation. Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta has not lost all of his idealism from the first film and learns to play to the cameras, though he wishes that the romance wasn’t all for show. Hutcherson ably supports the film’s leading lady alongside Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz and Elizabeth Banks, all returning from the first film as the team who prepares Katniss and Peeta for the Games.



The casting in the first film was pitch-perfect, and that certainly continues in this film. Philip Seymour Hoffman effortlessly lends the picture gravitas as the sly master strategist Plutarch, sharing most of his scenes with Donald Sutherland – who is once again absolutely frightening without so much as lifting a finger. Also, since Toby Jones returns, this means there are two Truman Capotes in the same movie. The tributes who align themselves with Katniss and Peeta in the arena are all well-portrayed as well: Lynn Cohen bringing a warmth and sadness to the silent Mags, Jena Malone entertainingly spunky as Johanna, Sam Claflin suave and strapping as the sexy Finnick and Jeffrey Wright and Amanda Plummer eccentric but reliable as Beetee and Wiress respectively. This is a bunch we truly can root for and yet are never 100% sure if they won’t turn on each other.



While The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a solid film, it is very much a middle instalment in the vein of The Empire Strikes Back and viewers are advised to watch the first film beforehand. The events of this film are not cleanly resolved and it does end on a cliffhanger, but this does not feel like a lazy tactic and we are keenly looking forward to Mockingjay Part 1.

SUMMARY: This sequel sets the screen ablaze with an engrossing, masterfully-told follow-up to The Hunger Games. Now can we stop with the Twilight comparisons already?

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Expendables 2

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

56Movie Review                                                                                                                     15/8/12

THE EXPENDABLES 2

2012

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris

Directed by: Simon West

            Slowly but surely, Hollywood seems to be learning the power of nostalgia, the appeal of the ‘George Lucas Throwback’ over stale production line multiplex fodder. Just as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films were homages to the science fiction and pulp adventures of yore on which Lucas was raised, so are several recent releases. Super 8 was a love letter to the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goonies and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Rock of Ages embraced the kitsch and exuberance of musical films such as Grease and Footloose. And, of course, The Expendables was a macho salute to 80s-early 90s action flicks such as the Rambo movies, Commando, Hard Target and their ilk. While many were left somewhat unimpressed, it definitely left a taste for more of the same old-school wham bang fun, and opened to door to a sequel and the hope that more somewhat-forgotten action icons would be back to join Stallone’s motley crew.

            The boys are back in town: team leader Barney Ross (Stallone), knife-loving tough Brit sidekick Lee Christmas (Statham), expert martial artist Yin Yang (Li), Gunner Jensen, the brutish former traitor made good (Lundgren), heavy munitions specialist Hale Caesar (Crews) and demolitions guru Toll Road (Couture). They are joined by Billy the Kid (Hemsworth), a fresh-faced ex-military sniper whom Barney has taken a shine to,  as well as Chinese agent Maggie Chan (Yu), on loan to the crew by their CIA employer Mr Church (Willis). They’re pitted against a treacherous rival mercenary leader with the aptronym Jean Vilain (Van Damme), keen to get his hands on a long-forgotten stockpile of pure plutonium rods. Thankfully the Expendables have allies “Lone Wolf” Booker (Norris) and Trench (Schwarzenegger) to get them out of the occasional jam.

           This film is something of an improvement over the first, which was more a proof-of-concept than anything else. It was Stallone telling audiences “hey, I still have the clout to pull all my old pals together”, but it really wasn’t a lot more beyond that. Here, there are more explosive action sequences, more banter and bickering amongst the team and more enemy soldiers to splatter with high-caliber rounds. Directing duties have been passed from Sylvester Stallone to Simon West of Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider fame. The guy clearly knows his way around an action scene, and these are generally quite a hoot to watch. The opening sequence which has the team blasting their way into an enemy stronghold in Nepal on an assignment to rescue a kidnapped Chinese billionaire sets the tone pretty well, with high speed chases, huge fireballs and flying bullets galore.

            However, films like these ultimately do not lend themselves well to plots or storylines beyond the most rudimentary, and it is made amply clear that the narrative is not of primary concern. It’s almost painfully straightforward in the way it’s told, with Jean Vilain’s motivations typical of baddies in genre pictures. His atrocities towards a mining village are shown and there’s chatter about the impact the weaponising of that much plutonium will have, but somehow the threat doesn’t take root, the stakes and magnitude of the danger never truly felt. There’s some amusing back-and-forth between the guys and their love-hate-love relationship is a nice undercurrent, but some one-liners do feel awfully forced – at one point, Schwarzenegger and Willis reference The Terminator, Die Hard and Rambo all within ten seconds. Eventually, the nostalgia-tinted goggles need to come off, and then it’s evident that while this is a good film, it is fairly unremarkable beyond its action hero clout.

            This brings us to the ensemble cast. Stallone and everyone else returning  from the first film is only more enjoyable to watch, Lundgren in particular – although Gunner betrayed the team in the first film, all seems to be forgiven and he is made out to be the hulking dunderhead, whose secret past involves getting a degree in chemical engineering from MIT on a Fulbright scholarship and becoming a bouncer, mirroring Lundgren’s own real-life experiences (he’s a graduate in chemical engineering from Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology and Australia’s University of Sydney who became a model, bouncer and later bodyguard to singer/actress Grace Jones).

 It is great to see Jean-Claude Van Damme back on the big screen and it’s somehow even more satisfying to see him as the scenery-chewing baddie that our heroes have to deal with, and adding to the evilness is martial artist Scott Adkins as Vilain’s ruthless lieutenant. The film has lots of fun with its upgraded cameos from Willis and Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris’ appearances are sure to get many excited, the fact that he was pushing for a PG-13 rating in place of the more fitting R notwithstanding. The film seems half clued-in on the fact the internet memes of Norris’ superhuman prowess were probably intended to be half-ironic, and Norris as Booker (a nod to his character of the same name in Good Guys Wear Black) gets to recount one such tale, involving a king cobra. Thankfully, it’s not too overplayed.

            Newcomers Liam Hemsworth and Yu Nan made everyone at least a little wary, and rest assured that Hemsworth’s role is considerably smaller than the promotional material makes it out to be, and he is nowhere as out-of-place among the action movie stalwarts as he could have felt, his Billy the Kid injecting a sense of tenderness to the proceedings, someone Barney sees almost as a surrogate son. However, Yu Nan fares much worse. She is proficient in the English language, having appeared in Speed Racer several years prior and Dolph Lundgren’s own low-budget action flick Diamond Dogs, but the inclusion of her character just seems so clumsy and crowbarred-in. She comes off as a little too smug for her own good and seems even less skilled as an actor than some of her action hero costars, and that’s saying something. If the filmmakers wanted a Chinese character in the bulk of the film, they should have increased Jet Li’s part; he merely appears for the opening and then is missing-in-action for the rest of the movie. That’s a crying shame given how cool his brutal hand-to-hand combat scene is. They also missed the opportunity to have a truly memorable female member of the team – surely the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton or Michelle Yeoh would have been better fits, no?

            At any rate, if you’re a genre fan, you’ll find plenty in The Expendables 2 to like. It’s a trip down memory lane fuelled by bravado, octane and lead, and fulfills its purpose of being a throwback to the glory days of its stars better than the first one did. It’s just that kind of movie, intellectually featherweight, brawny entertainment, only packaged better and presented slicker. It’s a bit of a shame that all this was at the expense of a meatier, more satisfying story, though.

SUMMARY: It’s the guys you love, back and kicking more behind than ever - while it’s a notch or two up from its predecessor, there’s still the feeling that the best men for the job could have been a little better at it.

RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

The Hunger Games review published!

Thanks to Royston Loh, editor of F*** Magazine, for publishing my review of The Hunger Games in the April issue.

The Hunger Games

What do you know, I'm back!

Movie Review                                                                                                             23/3/12

THE HUNGER GAMES

(2012)

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

Directed by: Gary Ross

Lionsgate/Color Force

          

  It was inevitable that Suzanne Collins’ 2008 best-selling and critically-acclaimed novel would receive the big-screen adaptation treatment. After all, it was a formula that worked out well for the Harry Potter books, and the vampire-love-story-that-must-not-be-named (though not so well for my favourite young adult series, the Alex Rider books). I have not read the book (blasphemy, I know), but will review the film based on its merits as a, well, film. And, possess many merits it does.

            For the uninitiated, the titular “games” refer to an annual tournament in which the 12 districts of Panem, a dystopian, future America, send one boy and girl aged 12-18 (known as “tributes”), chosen by ballot, to battle in a brutal televised death match, until the lone survivor is crowned the victor. The story centres on the two tributes from the poor coal-mining colony of District 12, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson), Katniss having volunteered to save her sister Primrose (Willow Shields) from being sent to the games and Peeta a baker’s son who nurses an unrequited crush on Katniss. Back home is Gale Hawthorne (Hemsworth), Katniss’ best friend, hunting partner, and the hypotenuse in a developing love triangle.

            The film hinges on themes such as the class divide, oppressive governments, the voyeuristic thirst for reality TV-style entertainment, survival and independence, while serving as a coming-of-age story too. This is heavy political commentary dressed up in a fantastic metaphor, and something that the film is generally very successful at conveying, though it lacks the sharper and more subtle observation of such classics as Brave New World and 1984, settling instead for something more accessible to the masses.

            And then there’s of course the controversial hot-button issue of kids killing kids. To reduce the story to just that is something of an injustice, and apparently the movie has toned the violence down quite a bit from the source material to keep with a PG-13 rating (and so as not to alienate its youthful fanbase), but it still is pretty gnarly to watch teenagers getting stabbed and shot at with arrows by their peers. One must bear in mind that this is hardly uncharted territory though – the 1999 Koushun Takami novel Battle Royale, which Collins claims to have never heard of until after turning in her book, comes to mind.

            Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar-nominated for her role in Winter’s Bone, beating out the likes of Chloe Moretz, Hailee Steinfeld, Saorise Ronan and Shailene Woodley (and practically every teenage-or-thereabouts actress in Hollywood) for the role, brings Katniss to life as one of the strongest female protagonists of our generation. Handy with a bow and arrow, she is quietly strong yet appealingly vulnerable. Josh Hutcherson, proving himself to be one of the finest young male actors currently working, lends his square jaw and slightly stocky frame to the youthful masculinity of Peeta, and it is interesting to see the relationship between him and Katniss develop. Liam Hemsworth doesn’t have much to do in this one, appearing mainly when we cut to Gale looking pained that Katniss seems to be falling for someone else. This is probably for the better as Hutcherson is clearly the superior actor.

            Something this movie gets very right, as did the Harry Potter films, is assembling a stellar supporting cast of older characters who frame the story and pull the strings. There’s Elizabeth Banks as flamboyant chaperone Effie Trinket, Stanley Tucci as charismatic emcee Caesar Flickerman, Lenny Kravitz as Katniss’ kind and nurturing stylist Cinna, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow, the autocratic ruler of Panem whose distinguished demeanour belies a dangerous sadistic streak.

            The standout though is Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, a former winner of the Games who has degenerated into a scruffy alcoholic, and is responsible for mentoring Katniss and Peeta. Harrelson deftly portrays the bitterness left over from the trauma of the games and proves to be savvy and strategic. A brief scene depicts him hob-nobbing with the elite to earn Katniss “sponsors” to provide her with supplies during the games, and he suggests playing up the romantic aspect of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship as good entertainment – much like how many authors use romance to manipulate their audiences.

            The Hunger Games shows up its teeny-bopper ilk with panache, and is one of the few modern films aimed at a teenage demographic that has any depth or substance. A captivating visual look, strong performances, an engrossing story and a dash of the unsettling turn the odds in favour of this one. I know I should save this for the review of the second film, but The Hunger Games is on fire.

SUMMARY: The Hunger Games proves it fully deserves to the next big thing. By turns entertaining and thought-provoking, it is refreshing to see a franchise flick give teenagers something to chew on at the movies other than their popcorn.

RATING: 4/5 STARS

Jedd Jong Yue