I’ll keep this brief. I’m not interested in writing a full review of the movie to discuss all the ways it was good, although it was a good movie (with a good cast, good script, decent special effects, etc). I just want to say one thing:
Jennifer Lawrence in this movie is amazing. Her acting, from start to finish, is about a thousand times better than the acting you normally see in action movies, even very good ones. I mean, she stunned me. I left the theater dumbfounded, mumbling about how actors in action movies never win awards for acting, but she should receive an academy award for that performance.
I often find action movies to be excruciatingly boring. There is certainly an artistry to action sequences, but most action movies devolve into clever action sequences mounted atop other clever action sequences, and as clever or artistic as they may be, without compelling characters in the midst of compelling interpersonal dramas, I stop caring about the action pretty quickly.
So this was refreshing. She made imaginary circumstances come alive, and that was a pleasure to watch.
(Her acting may just rescue the upcoming movies in the franchise, which are based on the horrible third book in the otherwise outstanding Hunger Games trilogy. The third is one of the most dismal books I’ve ever read. The plot is fine but the tone is way too dark – so dark it drains all satisfaction out of what is actually a happy ending. Even as a fan of the books, I won’t mind if the film makers change things a bit to make the tone brighter.)
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 William Bloom