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THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 - REVIEW

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The final part of the popular Young Adult movie franchise, The Hunger Games:   Mockingjay Part 2 delivers the war between the tyrannical President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the rebellion led by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) we were promised. Picking up soon after Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) returned from the Capitol not only physically drained but psychologically changed also, the film sees the rebellion send a team into the war-torn city in order to show that Katniss is fighting back, thereby inspiring the districts to do the same. She decides to find a way to personally kill Snow no matter what, putting an end to his cruelty once and for all. And since the city is completely booby-trapped, this leads to a somewhat grittier Hunger Games with Katniss' team having to avoid the likes of deadly black goo, sewer zombies and land mines. Before that, Katniss tries to convince another district to join the rebellion and Alma Coin's (Julianne Moore) motives are questioned. T

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1 - VLOG 21/12/14

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I break my own promise to not go and see another Hunger Games movie by... Going to see the new Hunger Games movie .

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1 - REVIEW

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Another year, another Hunger Games movie. Well, part of one, anyway. The popular pseudo- Battle Royale franchise is back as the actual "games" finally take a backseat to an actual plot and Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a hidden world outside the big city and her own district. To put it in retro movie terms: this is basically the Beneath The Planet Of The Apes of the series, except not awesome. After breaking out of the arena, Katniss finally wakes up in some kind of underground bunker/shelter occupied by a rebel army led by yet another silly-named character: President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore). She is kept up to date by Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his *sob* final roles) and Jeffrey Wright's character as they try to convince Coin that Katniss is a worthy "Mockingjay", the face and spirit of the resistance. But Katniss' beloved Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is still held captive by Donald Sutherland's intim

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE - VLOG 09/12/13

BATTLE ROYALE - REVIEW

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With The Hunger Games becoming a popular franchise and all, it's only fair that I should re-watch and review the movie which first introduced us to the concept of kids going ape shit and killing each other for no particular reason. Let's talk Battle Royale . Directed by the late, great Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a troubled dystopian version of Japan where, every so often, a high school class is picked for an elaborate, deadly game where everyone is sent to a deserted island and made to kill each other until only one remains. A chilling yet always likeable Takeshi Kitano teaches them the rules of the game, they are then given weapons, necklaces rigged to explode, maps, a list of danger zones to avoid and a time limit before being sent out into the wild. You'd think that it would take longer for these kids to kill one another but the action starts straight away and the kills are always completely satisfying in how gory and bloody they are. It's a sadi

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE - REVIEW

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After the huge success of the first The Hunger Games movie, finally we get this sequel and await not one but two more movies, the franchise therefore proudly following in the footsteps of The Twilight Saga and the Harry Potter franchise by ending in a two-parter. Catching Fire follows the story pretty much where we left it except, this time, victor Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) have become the people's rebellious inspiration and good old evil Donald Sutherland isn't happy. The latter wants to avoid a revolution at all costs so he changes the rules of "The Games" a little and Katniss gets selected once again. This makes for an interesting subplot but also for a very familiar movie. Save for what drives the characters, the political stuff that happens off-camera and the end reveal, this is basically the first film all over again. Beat by beat, we find exactly the same structure developing as we spend some time in the p