The Hunger Games: Catching Fire review

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (12A/PG-13, 146 mins)
Director: Francis Lawrence
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

On its release last spring, The Hunger Games was undoubtedly expected to be some sort of success. In fact it turned out to be a bona fide blockbuster, to the extent that not two but three more films were immediately greenlit from the two remaining books in the young adult trilogy by Suzanne Collins. That’s right procrastination fans, in a practice started by Harry Potter and for which Twilight then took up the baton, Mockingjay, will be two films; one released this time next year, and the final film the year after that.

That speaks of the massive cash cow the series has become, but any heightened expectations for a return to the world can also be attributed to the fact the first film was really rather good. If you skipped that first movie, there’s no hope for you here, as we’re thrust back into the life of our heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, now an Oscar winner, and an iconic presence throughout).

Katniss won the 74th Hunger Games and is now back in her District alongside Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with the pair of champions tasked with a promotional tour of the 12 Districts of Panem.

The president (Donald Sutherland) sees her as a threat and, smelling rebellion and uprising in the air, hits on the idea of making the next Hunger Games a battle between previous champions, to eliminate as many of them as possible. Newly on board is Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Gamemaker, aiding the president in his schemes.

It’s a world of poverty and hunger, except for the rich and pampered in the Capitol, and is presented as even more of a sinister and dystopian future than before. This is not some bright and colourful fantasy land, but one cut through with a deep and abiding sorrow.

The story is told in ways that are intriguing, dangerous and smart, touching on the chasm between ordinary people and those in power, and the way in which our obsession with celebrity can be used to hide away from the real problems in the world.

Once the Games begin, it moves into a gripping and exciting jungle adventure that offers more than just a re-run of the first, only occasionally dipping in pace while keeping one eye on the bigger picture. Slightly letting down the side are combat scenes that can be a bit shaky and poorly edited, toning down what should really be brutal violence to nab the audience-friendly 12A certificate.

But it’s the themes and characters that count more than the action, and this is a stirring instalment that leaves it all to play for in the final two films.

Thor: The Dark World review

Thor: The Dark World (12A/PG-13, 112 mins)
Director: Alan Taylor
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Now that we’re firmly into Phase Two of Marvel’s plan for total cinema domination, the titles are coming thick and fast.

The next Captain America will be along in the spring, and in a year that’s already brought the terrific Iron Man 3 we now have this sequel to Thor, a movie that was bright, funny and carried along with a real zip by director Kenneth Branagh. This first return to that world doesn’t quite measure up, thanks to some uninspired storytelling, but it’s still a breezy and fun couple of hours.

After the events of Avengers Assemble, Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is busy keeping peace across the realms. Since almost all the necessary introductions were made first time round, we can get straight to it, something that also allows characters slightly down the cast list to get their moment to shine.

The main bit of setup required is a prologue that goes all Lord of the Rings on us, as we learn about the Dark Elves led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston). He’s after some cosmic goo called the Aether, which will allow him to get up to no good when the nine realms align for the first time in 5000 years, something called the Convergence.

Back in Asgard, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has had to answer for his crimes in Thor and Avengers Assemble, and left to rot in prison until the plot requires him. Meanwhile, on earth, Natalie Portman’s scientist, Jane, is trying to adjust to life after Thor. But she gets dragged back into events when she’s alerted by her colleagues about some sort of portal they’ve found. Through a vague and confused bit of plotting, she comes into contact with the Aether via the portal, and gets somehow infected by it.

Thor brings her to Asgard in an attempt to cure her, but don’t look for much sense during this stretch that also brings an attack from Malekith that makes a mockery of the supposed Asgardian defences.

It’s one of two or three key sequences that, while never exactly botched, just point to a lack of directorial craft and poor editing choices. For all its story, and backstory, the writing isn’t the strong suit here. The big picture is often little more than gibberish, but individual scenes please and are still capable of moments of wonder.

Much of what draws audiences in comes from its technical brilliance. Glorious production design is used to realise Asgard and the other worlds we visit. Then of course there’s the action, generally rousing if a little repetitive at times. Thor swinging his hammer at a monstrous foe is enjoyable, but there’s only so many times we can watch that before it becomes monotonous. But come the Convergence, a grand finale awaits that makes the more sluggish passages worthwhile.

But the real selling point is the humour. Where the first film largely was largely comprised of Thor’s fish out of water antics, this time everyone gets the opportunity for a one-liner or two, and most comedies wish they were as funny as this.

It’s on a modest scale compared to the Avengers, but then so is almost every movie, but Thor: The Dark World will do very nicely until the next one of those comes along.

Ender’s Game review

Ender’s Game (12A/PG-13, 114 mins)
Director: Gavin Hood
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Though it begins with the usual guff about aliens attacking earth years before, this sci-fi adventure continues with a sturdy and serious tone and actually ends being rather thoughtful. In anticipation of the aliens attacking again, the military is training up youngsters, and the fleet commander (Harrison Ford) has his hopes pinned on Ender (Asa Butterfield), whom he thinks can one day destroy their enemies. It’s Star Trek with kids, except not in any way juvenile, with the first half or more taking up by training, and though there’s a lot of stuff we’ve seen before in Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, it does provide moments of brilliance. But when it finally gets down to it, Ender’s Game proves itself to be surprisingly weighty in its tackling of military foreign policies, as well as providing a commanding character in Ender and some cracking action to boot.

Bad Grandpa review

Bad Grandpa (15/R, 92 mins)
Director: Jeff Tremaine
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Part the bone-worrying stunts of Jackass, part the hidden camera windups of Sacha Baron Cohen, this crude comedy caper never finds a happy middle ground. After his wife dies, 86-year-old Irving (Jackass frontman Johnny Knoxville in old-man makeup) must transport his young grandson across the country to live with his father. But along the way they stage stunts and pranks to shock or embarrass the unwitting public, such as Irving knocking over the coffin at his wife’s funeral. The main sticking point with the lack of laughs is that, unlike with Baron Cohen, it’s not the ignorant or the bigoted being targeted here, but members of the public who are generally being kind and helpful to an old man a little boy, so there’s little to be gained from seeing them duped.

Escape Plan review

Escape Plan (15/R, 115 mins)
Director: Mikael Håfström
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Sylvester Stallone stars in this slice of action daftness as a breakout expert who finds the weak points in prison security.  Asked to test out a new top secret facility, he finds himself banged up in a glass box, under constant surveillance and with no escape seeming possible, realising someone has set him up. Luckily his, and the film’s, secret weapon comes in the shape of fellow inmate Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the pair cook up an escape plan. Aside from brief moments in two Expendables movies, we’ve been waiting 30 years for a proper Stallone-Schwarzenegger match-up, though for all the nostalgia this provides, it’s sometimes just a wee bit tired. Don’t come for the banter, which is largely dire, or even the action, which is uninspired, but the mechanics of the escape plan are fairly diverting. It’s incredibly silly, no doubt, and that’s a good thing, but it’s the sort of malarkey that should rattle along in rip-roaring style, not lumber for almost two hours towards a generic action finale.  Mostly though it’s about the pleasures to be had in watching two of the most iconic stars of our time share the screen, and that’s just about good enough.

The Kings of Summer Blu-ray review

The Kings of Summer (15, 93 mins)

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Unsatisfied with their home lives, teenagers Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) venture out into the local woods to build their own house. They're joined, for reasons never quite explained to either them or us, by the distinctly odd Biaggio (Moises Arias), and the boys spend their days hunting and enjoying their freedom, while the search for them continues at home. Treated rather shabbily on its UK cinema release, The Kings of Summer cries out to be discovered on the home market. At first glance it’s a very well constructed coming-of-age tale, but what separates it from many of its ilk is a surprisingly zany tone, which often sends it spinning off into surreal moments of comedy, and the results can be very funny indeed. The three young leads are great, but with all the adults played by comedians, it’s here that many of the biggest laughs are to be found, with Nick Offerman especially memorable as Joe’s uncompromisingly foul-mouthed father. But the comedy doesn’t come at the expense of the emotional investment, and these are characters we really come to care about over the course of what is a first rate indie drama.

Blu-ray prizes to be won

Win No One Lives on Blu-ray

No One Lives comes to DVD and Blu-ray on 23rd September and to celebrate, courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment, we have a Blu-ray copy to give away to one lucky winner!

The acclaimed director of “Versus” and “The Midnight Meat Train” concocts a bloody cocktail of the horror, thriller and action genres, and introduces audiences to a brand new horror icon in this smart and totally unpredictable shocker.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply send an email with your name and postal address to aloneinthedarkcomps@gmail.com by Monday September 30th.



Terms and Conditions

Only one entry will be accepted per person.
Entrants must be UK residents and aged 18 or over.
The judge's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Insidious Chapter 2 review

Insidious Chapter 2 (15/PG-13, 105 mins)
Director: James Wan
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The first Insidious a couple of years ago wasn’t the most sophisticated piece of horror cinema ever made, but it was a relentless scare machine. This sequel deepens the mythology with an awful lot of backstory, but dilutes the scares, beginning with the teenage version of Patrick Wilson’s Josh back in 1986 when his family first encountered the evil forces that still haunt them. We then pick up immediately after the events of the first film, with Lin Shaye’s medium murdered and Rose Byrne wondering whether she can trust her husband or if he’s possessed. Slow and creepy is the order of the day, and director James Wan’s skill with the frame and woozy angles still generates a handful of chilling moments, though not as many as you might think amidst a surfeit of spooky toys. This second chapter is clumsily structured, which would be less bothersome if the scares were more forthcoming, and there’s a stretch in the middle spent wandering round an old hospital that’s really sort of dull. But it’s rescued by a clever final third in which past events are neatly integrated, and there’s every indication it’s a series with the potential to run and run.

Sir Billi review

Sir Billi (U, 76 mins)
Director: Sascha Hartmann 
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

What have audiences done to deserve animated movies of the standard of this and Justin and the Knights of Valour in the same week? The first full length computer animation made entirely in Scotland, and with a voice cast lead by Sean Connery, Sir Billi has been in production for several years and finally makes it to a tiny handful of cinemas. What’s surprising is that it will be seeing the inside of a cinema at all, because this is stunningly misguided and woefully executed in every conceivable way. Even leaving aside the ugly, actually rather freaky animation that wouldn’t pass muster on CBeebies, there’s not a moment of storytelling competence, with what plot there is involving Connery’s highland hero Sir Billi trying to rescue Scotland’s last beaver. Characters appear at random to take part in jaw-droppingly daft and arbitrary events, and an embarrassing script consists largely of Bond references and inappropriate innuendo. It would be great if Scotland could produce decent animated movies, but Sir Billi is an insult to animation, and it’s an insult to Scottish film.

Riddick review

Riddick (15/R, 119 mins)
Director: David Twohy
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆


An under the radar near-classic was born when Vin Diesel’s hard-hitting convict antihero Riddick first appeared over a decade ago in the lean and effective Pitch Black, before an attempt to turn it into a big budget franchise saga stalled with the bloated and incomprehensible Chronicles of Riddick. This third in the series attempts to take him back to basics to an extent, and begins with Riddick left for dead on a baking and near uninhabitable planet, where no end of computer generated beasties are out to kill him. This unexpectedly extended sequence showcases some imaginative creature design and Riddick’s survival instincts before we get to the meat of the plot in which a bunch of the universe’s most ineffectual mercenaries arrive on the planet intent on collecting his head. This is more hunt and bait than straight action, and proves to be rather interesting, at least giving some relief from Diesel’s rather portentous noir voiceover. Disappointingly this can’t be sustained into a final third that runs out of ideas and relapses into uninspired evade-the-monsters shenanigans that try to recall Aliens but come up short. But Riddick remains a hulking and iconic presence throughout, and further adventures in his company wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome.