The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

What's it about? Part 3 in what will be a 4-part film series, based on The Hunger Games trilogy. Dystopian Young Adult Fiction. The Hunger Games take place in a future where the US has been ravaged by war and hardship and is now renamed "Panem", separated into the haves (in the Capitol) and the have nots, who live in a series of Districts, where they labour and toil for the good of the Capitol-dwelling wealthy elite. Children are chosen from each district to fight to the death in a deadly arena, all for the Capitol's entertainment and Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) has competed in those Hunger Games across the first two films. As we catch up with her in Mockingjay Part 1, we transition into a very different type of film. No longer concerning ourselves with arena warfare, we are now in the realms of political machinations, propaganda, control of the airwaves and the battle for the hearts and minds of people. Katniss is not sure if she wants to be a propaganda puppet, but as she sees the brutality inflicted by the Capitol, her position changes and her resolve hardens.

What's it like? Not as effective as the first two films, but definitely worthwhile for fans of the franchise. If you haven't seen the first two films, you are unlikely to start here, but if you've come this far, there is much to enjoy. Much less action-packed but just as thought-provoking, Mockingjay Part 1 confronts us with inequality of power, a yearning to be free and the grey areas occupied by propaganda wars. Jennifer Lawrence continues to carry the franchise on her back through another effective, subtle and nuanced performance, at once brittle, resolute, toughened and tender. A seemingly irreconcilable bundle of contradictions effortlessly held together by a young actress of phenomenal ability. The late great Philip Seymour Hoffman and an always-reliable Julianne Moore give great support and if some of he rest of the cast don't make quite such an impact, the overall effect of the film is engaging.

Should I see it? It's not quite a "must-see" and for my youngest it wasn't as interesting as the previous two films. There are a few scenes of injured people that won't go down well with younger more delicate children, but the scenes are far from gratuitous, showing the impact of a brutal regime and giving rise to a righteous anger on the part of Katniss. Consider carefully what you consider suitable for your children , but otherwise enjoy the ensuing conversations about politics, class struggles and control of the airwaves!

Interstellar (2014)

What's it about? Ostensibly a science-fiction film about a desperate mission to find an alternate habitable planet for mankind, after the Earth becomes uninhabitable due to crop blight, Interstellar is as much about life, love and family as anything else. Matthew McConaughey's former pilot, now farmer, must leave his family behind to join a mission that will travel through a nearby wormhole in order to find a new home for mankind. The planets they find need to be assessed for suitability for starting over, while fluctuating gravity fields wreak havoc with the relative passage of time, not only for the mission compared with life on Earth, but also between the people on the mission itself. McConaughey's everyman Cooper wants the mission to succeed but more than anything he wants to keep the promise he made to his daughter Murphy that he would return.

What's it like? Phenomenal, but not to everyone's taste. In its final third it very much moves into the fiction part of the sci-fi genre, which is fine, but the plot developments will have to be accepted on their own terms if you are to come out of the cinema feeling satisfied. The visuals are imaginative and stunning, the alien worlds plausible and breath-taking and the passage through wormholes, black holes and frozen atmospheres thrilling. For a film-maker like Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige) who has always brought a strong element of veracity to his film making, this is his most fantastical venture yet, but it also has perhaps the strongest heartbeat of any of his films to date, the unbearable heartache of Cooper and his daughter as he leaves her behind being among the film's most resonant and affecting scenes, despite being one of its quietest. All of the acting performances are top-drawer, especially McConaughey and Mackenzie Foy, who plays the youngest iteration of Murphy. Many will have wished that Nolan had finished on a more open-ended note (like Inception) rather than something a lot more neatly wrapped up (like The Dark Knight Rises), but that is the film-maker's prerogative - they get to choose the film they make and thankfully this one is ace.

Should I see it? It certainly is a big screen experience, given the spectacular visuals, but if thought-provoking, mind-bending sci-fi isn't your thing then you might want to save some pennies. Although the film carries a 12A certificate, there's is relatively little violence, no sexual content and very little bad language, so in terms of taking children it is more a question of what they can understand and make sense of, rather than a concern over inappropriate content. At over two and a half hours, there's quite a lot to take in.

The Amazing Spider-man 2

What's it about? It's about Spider-man. He's Amazing. Having seen off Lizard in the previous film, Spider-man begins this sequel very much in full flow, swinging around and thwarting crime and also holding down a relationship with Gwen Stacy, despite having promised her dying father that he would stay away for her safety. Meanwhile, Max, a nerdy, lonely and anonymous employee at Oscorp, accidentally fries himself while trying to make repairs to an inordinately sophisticated engineering set up and (as is the usual outcome for science experiments and medical procedures within the Spider-man universe), he becomes "Electro" - a creature of pure electricity, hungry for power. At around the same time, Harry Osborn, a childhood friend of Peter Parker's, arrives in town to take over the running of his father's company. Harry has grand plans, including trying to find a way to stave off the rare but devastating genetic disease that ravaged his father. The solution may lie somewhere in Peter's new physiology, which itself turns out to owe a debt to his late father's life's work. It's complicated. There's a lot of building of mythology to cover the next few films. And probably a bit too much of everything, all things told.

What's it like? Okay, so it is a little bloated and it feels like far too much is being squeezed in. At times the problematic spectre of Spider-man 3 and its excess of villains looms large and always there is the distinct memory of Spider-man 2 (the one with Dr Octopus), which kept things lean, exciting, engaging and comprehensible. That's not to say that TAS2 is a failure, far from it. The relationship between Parker and Gwen Stacy is believable and involving and Parker's feelings of guilt at having dishonoured the dying wish of her father is well-conveyed by having Parker see Gwen's dad here and there with a disapproving look on his face. Andrew Garfield is an excellent Parker and Spidey, both awkward/nerdy and confident/flippant when the characters require it. Despite a suit that robs him of facial expressions, Garfield convinces just as much as Spidey as he does as Parker, even if director Mark Webb continues to seem much more at home with character interactions than action set pieces.

Admittedly high-quality CGI work dominates those action set pieces, which robs them of a certain amount of heft, but the human stakes are sold by the cast so that we do at least continue to care about the outcome. As a twitchy, ultimately malevolent Harry, Dane DeHaan is excellent and we are easily convinced by the rapport that is quickly established between Harry and Peter. The building of Peter's backstory and specifically the secrecy and mystery of his parents' disappearance is teased but not frustratingly so - we are given enough to satisfy without the film showing its hand too clearly.

We also get a fore-taste of what Oscorp is going to be up to over the next couple of films, with the current appetite among films for franchise-building and multi-film story arcs tending to overload the film when it could do with being lighter on its feet, but this is the cinematic air we breath these days, so we had better get used to it. Exciting and funny, entertaining and engaging, but not ultimately hugely memorable or life-transforming, The Amazing Spider-man 2 is good but not great.

Should I see it? If you like this sort of thing, then it will go down a treat. If not, this will be unlikely to make a convert of you. There are certainly better and more entertaining comic book properties doing the rounds this year, but there is something enduring about the appeal of Spider-man. Although there is a lot of back-story and mythology presented here, what is lacking is subtext, depth and meaning. The eyes are dazzled, but the mind less so. The themes from the series' current high-water mark, Spider-man 2 of duty, insecurity, burdensome responsibility and loss of power are lost here amidst all of the noise, leaving us altogether less engaged. Although Garfield sells the weight of the consequences of his choices, it feels like an afterthought, an add-on, rather than a vein running through. Not every film can be Schindler's List or The Shawshank Redemption, full of meaning, weight and subtext, and there is of course a place and time for entertainment, but this outing for Spidey felt hollow in the end and the gruesome countenance of the Green Goblin really upset my usually fairly robust 8 year-old to the point of him wanting to leave the auditorium, so exercise the usual 12A discretion in relation to younger children.

Divergent (2014)

What's it about? In a dystopian future, where some sort of conflict has resulted in Chicago being turned into a walled city, society is divided into five factions. Although children are raised by their parents within a certain faction (Amity are peaceful and mostly work in farming crops for the other factions, Dauntless are brave and exciting and serve as security/peace-keeping, Candor are honest, Erudite are clever and logical and Abnegation are selfless), at the age of 16 each child takes a test which results in them being allocated to a certain faction. Beatrice ("Tris") produces unusual results in her aptitude test, revealing her to be "Divergent" - not naturally suited to one faction over another - and although her parents are in Abnegation, she is drawn to the excitement of Dauntless and chooses them in her allocation ceremony. As she then progresses through her training, Tris becomes aware of political shenanigans involving Dauntless, Erudite and the fight for power over and control of the city.

What is it like? An adaptation of book one in a young adult series, set in a dystopian future, built around a strong female protagonist - the shadow of Hunger Games hangs over Divergent, but it is its own creature and nowhere near as derivative as might be feared. Despite the somewhat cumbersome synopsis set out above, the future world and its rules are created fairly economically and there is relatively little clunky exposition. The characters are well-drawn (credit of course to author Veronica Roth for creating a believable future world and populating it with three-dimensional characters), the narrative moves along briskly and we are able to care about and understand motivations, destinies and demises. Tris must pass through her training with enough success to not be eliminated and cast out of Dauntless and her brittle strength and determination are convincingly portrayed by Shailene Woodley. The rest of the supporting characters are less well fleshed out, but this is a story all about Tris and only the first of three books, so it is a minor quibble. The leaders of Dauntless are suitably ambiguous and the development of relationships and antagonisms believably progressed. As the manipulative and menacing leader of Erudition, Kate Winslet brings real heft. Indeed, it is easy to imagine Winslet playing Tris if Divergent had been made fifteen years ago.

As with The Hunger Games films, Divergent doesn't flinch from genuine consequences, abrupt violence and the deaths of significant characters. It would be nonsense for it to be otherwise and the film trusts audiences to be grown up and engaged enough to appreciate the narrative coherence and integrity that requires such steps to be taken. Action sequences and set pieces are suitably thrilling, most of the characters are engaging and consistent and the film ends on a note that leaves us looking forward to the next instalment. 

Should I see it? Although it depends on your appetite for this sort of thing, even someone like me who could take or leave this sort of thing was suitably engaged. Although parents can take under 12's into a 12A certificate, the BBFC continue to (rightly) maintain that a 12A rating means that it is not generally considered suitable for children below that age. There is a significant amount of violence, including hand to hand combat, knives and guns and although the film's themes (Who am I? What is my place in the world? Do I fit in? Should I toe the line or embrace my desired destiny? Why am I different?) are important for young and old to grapple with, the reality is that those going through their teens and therefore adolescence are more in need of engaging with these ideas and more likely to find them affecting. Younger children may be excited by the visuals, but ultimately may find the violence and death on display a bit much. If you are a concerned parent, you can always look at the BBFC's detailed listing for this (or any other film). Click on this link for more guidance on this important issue.

Twelve Years A Slave (2014)

What's it about? Solomon Northup is a free man, living in the state of New York and making a living for himself, his wife and their two children as a violinist. He is invited by two travelling circusmen to joint them on a tour of Washington, at the end of which is drugged, imprisoned and sold into slavery in the South. His initial indignation at his plight and his refusal to "play the part" of a compliant slave, eventually begins to give way as he realises that although mere survival feels wholly unsatisfactory, it may be preferable to the only other alternative.

What is it like? Slavery in the US has been handled on the big screen before, but rarely very well. Important literary works like Uncle Tom's Cabin have been adapted but often ineffectively and so it was unclear how Northup's hugely important memoir was going to fare, especially in the hands of a British director, working on only his third full length feature. All such concerns can be fully and emphatically set aside. As almost unwatchable as Twelve Years a Slave might be in places, it is a hugely important, utterly effective and devastatingly impactful film that deserves its "instant classic" tag like few other films in recent memory. Scenes of lynching, whipping and rape are of course harrowing but they are not dwelt upon gratuitously - on the contrary, these moments are presented starkly, bleakly and truthfully. At times, horrendous events unfold on screen as other slaves dutifully go about their duties elsewhere within the shot - so commonplace are such events for them that they almost disregard them, yet we are devastated by them at the same time. It is a tonal tightrope that, like Spielberg's Schindler's List, is exceedingly difficult to walk. Too much bleak miserablism and your audience switches off, denying them an essential history lesson. Too little truth and reality and you tell a lie and dishonour those who suffered (and continue to do so).

Chiwetel Ejiofor is utterly compelling as Northup, dignified, resilient, steadfast, righteous, broken. So much of the story and his experiences is conveyed with a look, a glance, a moment - it is a phenomenal piece of work and rightly lauded and lavished with awards earlier this year. Tears are likely to come at various intervals and the more monstrous characters will cause rage to rise within us as well - the inhumanity and injustice of what was meted out for centuries continues to be a wound that won't heal. The climax to the film is necessarily cathartic, but the abiding sense of loss, that something has been taken that cannot be restored, is what remains with us. Heart-breaking but essential.

Should I see it? If at all possible, yes. The film's (UK) classification of 15 is probably right, given the levels of violence, abuse and swearing depicted on screen, but unlike other films with that classification where the violence is played for laughs and the swearing likewise, Twelve Years a Slave is devastating. Many will feel that they would rather not sit through something so traumatic and that is an understandable viewpoint. Similarly, younger teenagers might benefit from the history lesson but caution should be taken in exposing them to something as grown up as this. It is not a film for the faint-hearted, but it has so much to commend it. Hope and despair, humanity and inhumanity, hatred and injustice and a scar on the conscience of an entire country. Monumental.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

What's it about? Picking up after the climax to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, DOS takes us back to the Dwarf kingdom, where Smaug the dragon jealously guards a colossal hall of unimaginable treasure. Along the way, Bilbo and the rag-tag company of dwarves run into benevolent and not-so benevolent men, ambiguous  and powerful elves, ride barrels down a mighty set of rapids and then finally square off against the eponymous creature, who needless to say will not easily or gladly be parted from his gold.

What's it like? For those who found Unexpected Journey too slow and uneventful, those wrongs are righted here to a degree. DOS moves quickly and is generally far more full of incident than the scene-setting first part. Having said that, a volume as slender as The Hobbit never had any business being fleshed out into three 2.5 hour films, so there is still a bagginess here that cannot be avoided or denied. Set pieces such as the afore-mentioned barrel run down the rapids and the finale with Smaug are thrilling and effective and Martin Freeman continues to bring a perfect blend of innocence and bite to Bilbo. With thirteen dwarves, some were bound to continue to fade into the background and it is difficult to remember much from most of them. Even with a long running time, it was always going to be hard to keep them from being largely anonymous. 

Peter Jackson brings Orlando Bloom back as Legolas and introduces an entirely new character in the shape of Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel, an elf warrior with a bit of a soft spot for one of the dwarves. The fighting and action sequences blend live action with complex digital effects with considerable success and although the whole enterprise feels necessarily other-worldly, it is not a distancing experience. As always, Jackson draws us into a real, convincing, fleshed out world. We believe in the characters in all of their various shades of grey and even if this series of films has already become bloated, we stick with it and most importantly, we care.

Should I see it? There is a lot to like and admire and not too much to be concerned about for younger audiences. There is certainly no sexual content or bad language, but the violence is pretty strong in places. A decapitation is a decapitation, whether it is an orc/goblin head or not. A giant spider attack will not go down well with more delicate sensibilities either, so be warned on that score. On a more positive front, there continues to be a lot of interesting content about power and corruption, the rise of insidious, infectious evil, pride and greed and a longing for home. As is often the case, these important and weighty themes can be lost amongst the loud noises, but they are there if you are prepared to look for them.

Man of Steel (2013)

What's it about? Krypton is on the brink of destruction due to out of control mining of the planet's core. General Zod and his cohorts seek to take over control from the planet's ruling body, discovering in the process that Jor-El and his wife Lara have violated Krypton's laws by conceiving and giving birth to a child the "old-fashioned" way, instead of through the now normal genetic engineering approach. Before Zod can stop them, Jor-El and Lara launch their son towards earth in an escape craft, knowing that Earth's yellow sun will bestow on Kal-El powers that will render him all but invincible.

When Kal-El crash-lands in Kansas he is found and adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent who quickly discover that he is no ordinary child. As the newly-named Clark grows up and his powers develop he struggles to come to terms with them, hide them and control them and as he moves into adulthood he becomes a nomadic loner, although his occasional use of his powers begins to attract the attentions of Lois Lane, a reporter for The Daily Planet. Then, Zod and his associates arrive, searching for Kal-El and planning to take over the planet. Clark must come to terms with who he really is and take his stand on behalf of his adopted home.

What is it like? As has been the case with much of director Zack Snyder's output, this one divided audiences, perhaps moreso than it divided critics who mostly seemed to enjoy the approach taken to this most iconic of superheroes. The opening scenes on Krypton play out as full-on sci-fi, with the planet proving beautifully and richly rendered with harsh, angular landscapes and suitably other-worldly flora and fauna. Kal-El/Clark is presented as a person very much out of place, not feeling at home and not sure of his place in the world. His conversations with Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent are the richest elements of the film, his plea of "why can't we go back to pretending I'm your son?" met immediately with, "you are my son". Zod is presented as suitably villainous by the outstanding Michael Shannon, his performance wholly different from but just as compelling as that of Terence Stamp in the original franchise. Amy Adams' Lois Lane is a perhaps a little thin, but Henry Cavill really delivers as Superman, covering his move from solitude to prominence adroitly and always convincing as a fully-rounded character.

As the story moves into its final act and Zod and Supes set about each other, we do find ourselves embroiled in the seemingly now unavoidable massive city-wide destruct-othon. As Zod comes to terms with his acquisition of the same powers enjoyed by Superman, they inevitably lay into each other with increasing gusto, but the wholesale collateral destruction does feel a little too familiar to really impact. Likewise, the decision to play the film very straight and very serious will not suit everyone. It is a definite and committed approach and works excellently, but many will protest "where is the fun?". With Christopher Nolan on board as producer, this was always going to take the Batman/serious approach, so if nothing else go in with your eyes wide open. This is not being played for laughs.