Spring has sprung, and most movies have given this weekend over to the opening of The Hunger Games, the next synergistic franchise based on meh-ly written books to become a franchise and remind of us its existence every two years or so with another installment more banal than the first. Lawrence has had some fine roles as an actress, so I’m hoping I’m off the mark on this one, but those who don’t learn from history, etc., etc. If you’re looking for something equally as violent but not nearly as Hollywood, you can check out The Raid: Redemption.
The Hunger Games: I get the allegory, but I can’t buy into this film / novel as a new concept. Reimagining the poor as playthings with clever sobriquets like “tributes” has been done before in less diaphanous metaphors. In fact, in 1948, Shirley Jackson penned the much shorter “The Lottery,” a text that similarly examines the contradictions of human evolution and the lust for violence. Granted, The Hunger Games is drawn out much more and heroes and villains are formed more clearly, but by the end, doesn’t the metaphor grow tired? In truth, this could be better that say any installment of Twilight, solely on the grounds that Jennifer Lawrence is a rather solid actress who has quite a presence on screen. The question needing to be begged is whether or not she’s there to act, or to be a crowd-drawing name.
The Deep Blue Sea: My initial fear that this is a sequel to the LL Cool J joint from the 1999 film about insane sharks, or something, was allayed once I saw the inclusion of Rachel Weisz, who plays the wife of a British judge. In this film, she enters an affair with a Royal Air Force pilot, which can only mean that the conflict between employer / employee and male / female relationships are destined to crash head on. Since it’s a British film, it’s more than likely to end on a down note, which might not be a terrible. Seemingly, it would be better than the pedestrian ending where the judge acquiesces to the affair, citing that his love for Hester (Weisz) forces him to let her go free and be her own woman. (On a side note, doesn’t it seem a bit much to name an adulterous woman Hester?)
The Raid: Redemption: I like that this film is titles as if it were a sequel. From Welsh director Gareth Evans, The Raid: Redemption is the tale of a SWAT team trapped in a building that is run by a mobster and his cronies. Now, what I also dig about this premise is that SWAT is usually utilized to break people out. As experts of entry and recovery, SWAT is found in an unfamiliar territory when they are the ones on the receiving end of specialized tactics. The cold and brutal style of the filmmaking also suggests that this action movie will be less replete with explosions and more filled to the brim with physical action sequences.
