Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The adventures of the hesitant Katniss Everdeen continue in the second part of the trilogy, based on the book series of the same name by Suzanne Collins. This time, Katniss finds herself face to face with the Capital and gets forced to return to the fighting arena. Will she survive? Well, given that there is a third book, it is safe to assume that she will. The first movie was a great letdown for all the books’ fans out there, since they got a lot of the details wrong and the acting sucked. This one is supposed to be different. Disappointment aside, curiosity gets the better of people and that is why it became the number one movie in the American box office two weeks after its release.
“It’s ruthlessly gripping, and aside from a few slow passages in its opening act, it more or less constantly flicks between drama and action. This is particularly true when we reach the Games themselves, which are violent but never gratuitously so, and take place in a wonderfully unhinged tropical arena filled with murderous baboons and rolling banks of poisonous fog.”
But the main threat is Katniss’s rivals, more Games veterans brought back into service. Some of them make a bigger impression than others, but the most memorable – Jena Malone’s axe-swinging gladiatrix, Sam Claflin’s laboratory-reared heartthrob – all seem to be aware that even with death close at hand, they are still playing characters for the cameras’ benefit.
And at the centre of it all remains Katniss, with a cool head, a huntress’s nerve and a wit as dry as a tinderbox. She’s a complex and admirable young heroine in a business that’s crying out for more. Will the studios take notice? There’s a fire you hope will catch,” wrote Robbie Collin of the Telegraph.
Shown at: Metro, Renaissance Nile City, Dandy Mall, IMAX
Carrie
Who can forget the famous scene of the 1976 film of Sissy Spacek covered in blood and looking like the creepiest prom date ever? This time, the role is played by young actress Chloë Grace Moretz known for her performance in the Kick-Ass movies. It is obvious that the remake is targeting pre-teens and teenagers who are not aware of the existence of the original film and hence, will make no comparisons. Yet, even with that embarrassing face aside, will the movie hold its own? Probably not. Young Moretz does not seem like the type who can carry out a telekinesis nervous breakdown.
“The second Carrie largely coasts along, pedantically imitating the first film in modern dress. As for Moretz herself, she has played formidable roles in TV’s 30 Rock and Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2, with the latter specifically addressing the teenage issues of exclusion, status and popularity. But Moretz just looks too tough. She should be playing one of the bullies. Moore is a hammy self-harmer, who has some faintly bizarre dialogue with her daughter. “I can see your dirty pillows!” “Breasts, Momma …” It might have been interesting, though very self-conscious, to have Spacek return to play the mother.
Visually, it is doggedly unoriginal and uninteresting, with the exception perhaps of some touches in which Peirce’s imagination suddenly takes flight; two Ballardian car-wreck moments for Carrie’s chief enemies; a grisly collision with a steering wheel and a chilling facial emergence through the windscreen. Carrie’s own terrible emergence into womanhood was an unforgettable, bloody nightmare the first time around. “This is pretty anaemic,” wrote Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian.
Shown at: Galaxy, Ramses Hilton, Golden Stars, Plaza
