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Re: New/Rented Movies: Have Mercy on Michael Bay's Soul, He Knows Not What He Does
Hunger Games was OK -- Nicholas Sparks does Running Man. The lead character is a Mary Sue, but the actress was so compelling it doesn't matter. B for the movie, A for the actress.
My wife (who loves the books) said it was a fairly faithful adaptation, but that they missed an opportunity to do interesting stuff with the "behind the scenes" scenes. The political-social critique to the present is obvious but they didn't actually overtly state it, which was refreshing.
Spoiler in white below:
I have no idea whether this was faithful to the book, but I didn't buy any romantic interest from the girl 12 for the boy 12. He loves her, she's using him (though not in a malicious way) to get back to her family and smoldering Huntsman. I respected her for this, but if the character is actually being set up to be torn in a cliche three-way love triangle later in the franchise, then there's nothing to suggest that yet. Dude, you're a nice guy, but she's just not into you.
Every black character in the movie solely exists to enable and extend the white girl -- it was like a 40's movie. The designer is the Magic Negro with sage advice. The doomed girl is the substitute for the sister. The "one time" savior dies immediately after doing his bit. The black district riots and gets dutifully put down to add some background cred for the injustice of their fate. I don't usually notice "soft racism," but that was really, really egregious.
Hunger Games was OK -- Nicholas Sparks does Running Man. The lead character is a Mary Sue, but the actress was so compelling it doesn't matter. B for the movie, A for the actress.
My wife (who loves the books) said it was a fairly faithful adaptation, but that they missed an opportunity to do interesting stuff with the "behind the scenes" scenes. The political-social critique to the present is obvious but they didn't actually overtly state it, which was refreshing.
Spoiler in white below:
I have no idea whether this was faithful to the book, but I didn't buy any romantic interest from the girl 12 for the boy 12. He loves her, she's using him (though not in a malicious way) to get back to her family and smoldering Huntsman. I respected her for this, but if the character is actually being set up to be torn in a cliche three-way love triangle later in the franchise, then there's nothing to suggest that yet. Dude, you're a nice guy, but she's just not into you.
Every black character in the movie solely exists to enable and extend the white girl -- it was like a 40's movie. The designer is the Magic Negro with sage advice. The doomed girl is the substitute for the sister. The "one time" savior dies immediately after doing his bit. The black district riots and gets dutifully put down to add some background cred for the injustice of their fate. I don't usually notice "soft racism," but that was really, really egregious.
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