Review - Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt II

I decided to watch this one because I've already watched the other two. There's this thing in human nature called "escalation of commitment" which basically says people will continue to do something stupid even after it becomes clear that what they are doing is stupid just because there has already been an investment in beginning. (Plus, watching bad movies typically results in far better reviews). Here, then, is an example of that. Knowing what I was in for, I watched it anyway. And boy was I not in for a surprise.

 

Firstly, this has the worst attempt at humour since the last Adam Sandler movie came out. It's kind of like watching Anne Frank tell knock knock jokes.

 

The direction and writing are utterly horrible. The segues are so bad that I had difficultly following the story. And there is no story to follow. It contradicts itself at every turn, seemingly to retconning itself but with no major objective in it's future story to truly justify that. It's like deus ex machina for a single point in time that then reverses itself.

 

The dialogue is meaningless. Aside from an hour of the worst military rhetoric ever written, there are gems like "He's warning us! That was a warning!" NO SHIT!? It's dialogue like that that makes things like Dora the Explorer popular with the 0-2 year old demographic. Can YOU spot the villain? Point to him NOW! And then there's the over arching theme. Or there isn't. Or there is but it's like watching a black hole slurp down another black hole. "Question them. What are their motives? What do they want?" Valid questions. But don't actually, you know, do it because then things would kind of implode because the answer to those questions is exactly the same thing you're fighting against. The whole thing is really just a how-to manual on making a pop star. It's all about the PR. We'll make her famous for nothing in particular and we'll have a hero to lead us to salvation and by salvation we mean destruction. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a world that couldn't possibly exist and as such it is very hard to suspend disbelief and immerse oneself in that world. Perhaps whichever district specialized in making munitions should have taken a second and thought "hey, waaaaaaaaait a minute...." The world they are fighting against is exactly the same kind of world they represent. What the fuck are they even fighting for?

For an entirely militaristic district, it has no concept of strategy. Full frontal attacks on a narrowly defensible target are stupid, especially without weapons - which you have apparently been stockpiling in abundance. Attacking a barely defended target which benefits yourself as much as the enemy is even more stupid. Killing a dozen meaningless guards at the expense of hundreds of your citizens is not akin to chopping off the head of the hydra. Even the US government has figured that one out.

Ultimately it's kind of sad and pathetic that one of the few stories that has a strong female lead should be set against such a pale, sad and pathetic narrative. Kind of like getting a Ford in any colour you want as long as it's black.

The best part of this film was when it was over. 0.58/5.

Dream #25 - Going Places

I saw a post on the internet about someone who had bought an old diesel engine and was looking to restore it. I must have liked the idea because the next thing I know I'm standing in tall grass beside the tracks giving a hand up to an attractive young lady into the cabin of the beast. I climb up behind her and enter the seafoam green cabin. Evidently the restoration is well under way already as many pieces have been replaced with polished stainless steel, newly machined and etched. I follow a group of volunteers all clad in brown jumpsuits up a short ladder and then another and another and another. We keep climbing far higher than the cab of a locomotive should allow us. Finally I come out of a hatch onto the deck of a tugboat. We're listing heavily to the left with water billowing up onto the dun coloured planks of the deck. The conning tower rises up in that same seafoam green behind me. The woman I helped aboard stands atop it calling "You can see the whole world from up here!" I look out along the river in what can only be described as the antithesis of the Heart of Darkness. The river is lit up with every colour of light dancing across the night sky. A thousand beats of a thousand drums beat a hundred rhythms echoing along the shores. The river is crowded with all manner of inner tubes and drunken college students splashing in the water. I pull out a point and shoot camera and try to take a picture of a glittering dome crowned with red and green lights in the distance and the sound of the music thuds in my chest. A heavy sheet of rain begins to fall obscuring all but a blurry mirage of lights and sounds. I become aware of a young woman standing knee deep in the water in the path of the boat. The thudding in my chest becomes the thudding of panic as I cry out to her to get out of the way. "It's a tugboat! It's not going to just bounce off!" We plowed ahead.

 

I find myself in Connie's apartment in Toronto. I wander into the bedroom and notice a peculiar pillow hanging on the wall with a series of questions and buttons on it. I pick it up and start poking at the buttons, wondering what function they perform. I flip the pillow over to see if it's attached to wires or anything but see nothing there. Connie and John enter the room and are surprised to find me behind the door. "I didn't know you were here," she says. Though surprised she seems neither happy nor sad to see me but rather distant.

 

I decide to take a nap on the couch. When I wake up,I'm surprised, concerned and a little nostalgic that Tabi is cuddled up to me underneath a blanket. I see her head sticking out the other end sleeping peacefully. I reach out to touch her and find her rather more hairy than anticipated. It is the touch of thousands of tiny, short hairs, a little stiff but soft. Lily raises her head from under the blanket and I smile at her.

 

I get up and wander the apartment. The floor is strewn in overlapping Persian rugs in true Connie style. There is a missing floorboard which I check out and discover that underneath is a set of stairs leading down to the basement with a lightbulb on a wire hanging above a wooden door. I find it odd that the supers of a building should be barred from entering the basement but I let it slide.

 

Leaving the apartment, I find myself in Hazeldean Mall. I'm standing at a high café table littered with cigarettes, lottery tickets and empty beer bottles in the middle of the concourse. I'm watching two women. One seems to be some kind of faith healer and the other is testifying. She holds out her hands in which I see Popeye sticks, Hubble Bubble Bubble Gum and a third candy I can't discern wrapped up in wax paper. "I gave up my Lick-A-Sticks!" she cries, emotion flooding through her like the wrath of God. Sam grabs my shoulders from behind and tries to push me forward, telling me I should do it, too. A small baggie of something I can only imagine was some kind of drug falls from the package the testifier holds into a gray garbage can between the two women. There is a commotion on the mezzanine and flash of blue.

 

"Run!" calls Colin, his blue button up shirt flashing away from me, Sam close on his heals. I'm a little baffled as to why we're running when we have no affiliation with the woman with the drugs but my feet start moving. I chase them down the brown tiled corridor of the mall, a little anxious of slipping on tiles. I realize I forgot my lottery ticket on the table and turn back while the other two carry on. When I get back to the table it has been cleared of its debris. A man shrugs and says "I didn't know you were coming back so I cleaned it." I scowl and begin to run again. Sam and Colin are nowhere to be seen. I take the escalator two stairs at a time and come out to a short strip of concourse with only the entrance to a movie theatre between me and the exit. I take little notice of the flashing lights and movie posters as I dash out into the night along a grassy dirt road. The path branches between a better road and a less used one shuttered by overgrown trees. I make for the road less travelled. I hear Charlie from "Lost" [I've been watching "Lost" lately] call from behind me. "Sometimes a fox and his dog are one!" The dirt in front of me begins to crumble and a large anime style fox with bright orange fur and certain wolf characteristics emerges from the earth to leap at me. As it gets close it morphs into Lily and I feel relieved as she makes a quick turn and starts running along side me toward my grandfather's old, blue Chevrolet half ton. I drop the back gate and Lily jumps in as Sam and Colin come scurrying up behind me. Colin runs to the passenger side and heaves on the locked door. "It's locked!" Sam jumps in the driver's side to take the middle seat as I climb in behind her. I begin to panic about being locked out of the vehicle when I realize I'm already sitting inside at the wheel with the keys in the ignition, my father's old brown leather keychain dangling there. Sam unlocks the door and I rev the engine.