BEFORE: Peter Dinklage carries over again from "Brothers" and finally, my first big-budget franchise sci-fi film of the year. Man, it sure was tempting to go straight to "Dune: Part Two" via Josh Brolin, but no, I've got to look at the big picture. The month is planned out, I can't skip ahead because I've got to hit 31 movies this month and NOT go over. If I skip ahead to "Dune" I'll get to the end too soon. That film was up for a few Golden Globes last night but I don't think it won anything.
But I did get a list of films that were nominated or won Golden Globes and that's a great place for me to start if I want to try and push the chain toward the relevant films in this year's Oscar race. I just don't think I can get to the really relevant films in time, though, no matter what they are. I kind of programmed for the "Dune" and "Joker" sequels, and now I don't think those films are going to win much, "Dune: Part Two" might pick up some technical Oscars, though. I think I'll only have time to chip away a little more at last year's Oscar contenders, before I have to switch over to romance films for February. So it goes.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Hunger Games" series (Movies #2,779-2,782)
THE PLOT: Coriolanus Snow mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games.
AFTER: OK, so it's been a while since I watched "The Hunger Games" - seven years already? And I feel like I watched them WAY after everyone else, like I did with the "Twilight" films. It was back in November 2017, which was Movie Year 9 - and they were released between 2012 and 2015, so really, I only started them two years after the last one, that's not TOO bad for me. But I guess if they can come out with a "Beetlejuice" sequel 36 years after the original, releasing a prequel eight years after the main films isn't really that late. Umm, or is that early, because it's a prequel?
This is how long it's been for me, when I first saw the previews for this I naturally assumed it was the back story of the character played by Woody Harrelson, something Abernathy? Well, I was WAY off because it's really the origin story of Coriolanus Snow, who was the President-slash-villain played by Donald Sutherland. OK, so they're going WAY back in time from the other films, something like 65 years, back when that old guy was fresh out of high school. OK, I stand corrected, but a few things still make me say, "OK, but wait a minute..."
First off, it's a blatant cash grab. I know the original author went back and wrote the prequel book this is based on, so she's really to blame here - probably inspired by the success of "Star Wars: Episode I" and its two sequels, why not just snap back four or five decades and try to pinpoint the moment where the train went off the rails, it could be a whole new trilogy if the first one connects. The second part of that is, the other trend in movies replicated here, is "if we can't go forward, let's go back" and show how the main villain got to be so evil in the first place. After Darth Vader they did it with Magneto, Maleficent, Cruella and even a little bit with the Beetlejuice character - surely every evil demon wasn't BORN that way, something had to happen to make them that way, and that's very close to saying that sure, they're bad people, but it's not their fault. They're all victims of circumstance, so society is to blame, no doubt. The Wicked Witch, Scar and (probably, eventually) Ursula the Sea Witch from "The Little Mermaid", you guys are all up next.
But first let's deal with Coryo Snow - who's young and cocky and says things like "Snow always ends up on top" like it's some kind of family motto or something. His father co-created the Hunger Games to punish Panem's 12 districts for a failed coup or something (HEY, today is January 6, how appropriate is that?), and they've been around for 10 years, but just like any reality TV show that's been on for so long, the ratings are starting to drop. So the co-creator of the Games, Casca Highbottom, reveals that there will be no Plinth Prize this year (whatever that is) and instead 24 Academy students, including Snow, will be in charge of mentoring the participants of the Hunger Games, teaching them to fight or whatever in the arena, to make the contest more watchable. I guess last year everybody just slaughtered each other in boring or non-dramatic ways, where's the fun and spectacle in that?
Coryo is assigned the female tribute from District 12, Lucy Gray Baird, and she may not be able to fight, but man, can she sing. A formal request is made to give the Hunger Games something of an "American Idol" twist, but it's the future and nobody remembers that show, so the idea is voted down. Lucy then tries to kill one of her rivals before the match even begins by slipping a snake down her dress, but the refs won't allow it, they tell her to save it for the arena. Another tribute kills her own mentor, and that for some reason is totally legal - after a review of the play, it turns out there nothing in the rulebook that says you CAN'T kill your own coach. OK, good to know.
Another twist occurs the day before the Games begin, when rebels bomb the arena while all of the Tributes are being shown around. (Really weird timing here, because we just had two terrorist events in America, one was in New Orleans the day before the Sugar Bowl.). But even though Coriolanus is injured in the explosion, all of the contestants manage to live and the Games proceed as planned - a new hitch, though, Coryo tells Lucy that the bombs have opened up some tunnels in the arena, so there might be some new hiding places. Oh, yeah, he also gives her some poison to use if things get dicey in there, which of course they will.
The Hunger Games also have a live host for the broadcast, apparently for the first time ever. This is Lucretius "Lucky" Flickerman, who possibly has some connection to Caesar Flickerman, the smarmy host from the other four films, but apparently this has not been confirmed yet, just assumed. Again I have to claim a "mea culpa", because I just naturally assumed that Jason Schwartzman was playing the younger version of the host played by Stanley Tucci, but apparently they are NOT the same character, they couldn't be because of the 65-year difference in the plot. Unless Flickerman is very very old and maybe had a LOT of work done. Let's just say maybe Lucky is Caesar's father, or uncle, or namesake, really it will be up to the third film in this new trilogy to resolve.
It's not long before the number of living tributes drops from the initial 24 to about 8 or 9, and the mentors watching via giant TV screens are, for some reason, allowed to keep helping. Also drones are used to deliver strategic supplies, like food, water and weapons, also viewers watching at home are allowed to make "donations" to help their favorites gain advantages. Yeah, this feels a lot like the show "Survivor" somewhere around season 36 or 37, when CBS realized that ratings went up anytime someone played an idol, so instead of the one (or two) idols in play during the early seasons, suddenly there were idols everywhere, plus steal-a-vote advantages, super idols, legacy advantages... and every time someone played an advantage, that meant the crew was going to hide another one somewhere near camp the next day. When everyone on the tribe has an idol, suddenly they're all essentially useless, especially if they're all played at the same Tribal Council. Just saying.
To wrap things up quickly, the mad scientist who creates the challenges releases a giant tub of genetically-modified snakes into the arena, and they put an end to nearly everyone playing the game, except for Lucy, who can apparently control the snakes by singing to them (only that's NOT really what happened here, hint hint) and so by default, she wins the Hunger Games as the last tribute standing. Coriolanus is declared the winner among the mentors, and it seems he's got a chance to get back some honor for his family, and his political career is off to a great start.
Only that's not what happens at all, Coriolanus Snow is accused of cheating, which he did, so Casca Highbottom is kind of like Gene Wilder at the end of the original Willy Wonka movie - "You get NOTHING, you LOSE, good DAY sir!" and our future villain is sent off to work for 20 years in the Peacekeeper Brigade. Very well, he'll do his time and work his way back to the Capitol, it can be done. Just wake up, get up, show up, punch in, pitch in, put out, punch out, go home, sack out, and repeat as necessary until an opportunity presents itself. But instead he bribes an officer to transfer him to District 12, which is where Lucy was from, and his old Academy buddy Sejanus Plinth volunteers to join him there.
This is really where the film kind of runs off the proverbial rails, because we came here for "The Hunger Games", it's right there in the title, and the Hunger Games are declared over when there's still an hour left in the film. What can they possibly show us in Coriolanus' career as a Peacekeeper that's as exciting as the Games? Nothing, really. Sure, there are rebels in District 12 and sometimes they get hanged, and when Sejanus is found meeting with the rebels, Corio sets out to find out what's really happening and promises to protect Sejanus, only he doesn't do that. He finds Lucy Gray again, as she performs nightly in a dance club right near the military base, and they get really close, but after they run off together something happens between them that I didn't quite understand, and before you know it, he's trying to hunt down and kill the woman he mentored. But this was starting to look like something of a love story, wasn't it? What the heck went wrong? Oh, right, this guy needs to become a villain somehow so he can't have a relationship go well, that wouldn't get him to where we need him to be.
The Head Gamemaker calls him back to the Capitol, and reveals that she got him pardoned for his cheating crimes and also got him a scholarship to Panem University. I guess she sees something in him, that he might be running the joint someday if he's just given the chance. One last meeting with his father's ex-partner, Casca Highbottom, reveals that Casca created the Hunger Games when he was drunk, the idea was to show society how savage we all are, deep down, when we are forced to be. It wasn't meant to be a real thing, but then Coriolanus's father stole the idea and turned it into one. OK, good to know, but now that the ratings are up, who even cares?
Really, I think my timing is very excellent here, what with political coup attempts and terrorist bombings and drones as plot points, but also the 2nd Trump inauguration is just a couple of weeks away, and if you want to know how we're going to get from here to the dystopian future we have looming, I can almost guarantee that the timeline we should be dreading goes straight through Trump. Nobody can say for certain what's going to take us down, climate change or microplastics or nuclear war, but considering the debate that the 2024 voters had about immigration and the fact that internment camps and mass deportations are quite possibly on the horizon, we're really not that far off now from the real Hunger Games. Just my opinion.
Also starring Tom Blyth (last seen in "Robin Hood" (2010)), Rachel Zegler (last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), Josh Andres Rivera (last seen in "West Side Story"), Viola Davis (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Jason Schwartzman (last seen in "Quiz Lady"), Hunter Schafer, Fionnula Flanagan (last heard in "Song of the Sea"), Burn Gorman (last seen in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"), Dexter Sol Ansell, Rosa Gotzler, Ashley Liao (last seen in "Always Be My Maybe"), Max Raphael, Zoe Renee, Aamer Husain, Lilly Maria Cooper, Ayomide Adegun, Amelie Hoeferle, Nick Benson, Mackenzie Lansing, Cooper Dillon, Hiroki Berrecloth, Kjell Brutscheidt, Dimitri Abold, Irene Böhm, Sofia Sanchez, Knox Gibson, Luna Steeples, Luna Kuse, Jerome Lance, Dakota Shapiro, Isobel Jesper Jones, George Somner, Vaughan Reilly, Honor Gillies, Eike Onyambu, Konstantin Taffet, Michael Greco, Daniela Grubert, Carl Spencer (last seen in "Rocketman"), Scott Folan (last seen in "Blinded by the Light"), Athena Strates (last seen in "The Good Liar"), Joshua Kantara, Kaitlyn Akinpelumi (last seen in "The School for Good and Evil"), Florian Burgkart, Aaron Finn Schultz, Mekyas Mulugeta, Emma Frieda Brüggler, Yalany Marschner, Serena Oexle, Anni Baumann, Flora Li Thiemann (last seen in "The Aftermath"), Seyna Sylla, Aminata Lucia Yade Toscano, Levi Strasser (last seen in "The Monuments Men"), Chieloka Jairus, Tim Torok, Varvara Kanellakopoulou, Marc Aden Gray, Denise Hansen, Raphael Zari, Mona Vojacek Koper, Felix Audu, Vanessa Blanck, Kittipong Ace Cunjanagan, Samia Hofmann, Nova Just, Yuli Lam, Joan Marie Laux, Kyra Reinert, Victoria Paige Watkins, Lucas Wilson
RATING: 5 out of 10 loose floorboards
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