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Having fought off my fellow contributors for the opportunity to review the adaptation of one of the most addictive Young Adult novels in recent memory, I then worried that I’d be forced to say it was tripe. But no! Against all expectations, The Hunger Games is a Good Film. If that’s not enough, carry on reading.

For those not up to date on the latest teen literary phenomenon, The Hunger Games takes place in the dystopian future Panem, where North America currently is. After putting down an uprising in the country’s 12 districts, the ruling Capitol devised the Games as a way of reminding those pesky workers what happens when they get a bit uppity and forget their place. Each year every district, excepting the Capitol itself of course, is required to send one boy and one girl along to a fight to the death. The last standing is then showered in riches to pay for their lifetime of therapy.

We join the action as Katniss Everdeen prepares her little sister, Primrose, for the lottery to pick District 12′s representatives. She assures the youngest Everdeen that as it’s her first time in the pool there’s no way Prim could possibly be picked. I assume you see where this is going. As a result, Katniss immediately steps up to take her sister’s place.

Both uncommunicative and frequently alone, Katniss lacks a lot of dialogue. Yet, she’s brilliantly portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence, who carries the film with confidence. She also does a good line in fake smiles – in most reviews, that comment would be a negative but not when playing unsociable Katniss.

For a film about 24 teenagers trying to slaughter each other, there is horror to be had but its 12A rating has sapped some of the punch. The handheld shaky cam does add tension to the hunt and the sound editing was excellent but when a wimp like me is able to sit through that much death without looking away, there’s something missing. This is particularly glaring when, in order to explain why we should be scared of a situation, the action is sometimes forced to pause for some exposition from the commentators.

I’ll reiterate, The Hunger Games is a good film: entertaining, engrossing and emotional without being manipulative. The adaptation is well-judged, the script zips along at pace and as such, it stands on its own two feet – no extra-curricular reading required. Purists expecting Madge to appear or any back story to the Avox girl should probably just stick to the books. Solid and well-made, it’s a satisfying couple of hours of entertainment but it doesn’t stay with you. Instead of dwelling on the cruelty of the Capitol’s rule, or the barbaric actions of some of the kids, I left the cinema puzzling over something I had noticed in the closing credits: There were snake wranglers? When in the film were there snakes?

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Michael lives a simple life. Michael has a dull office job. Michael has no wife or children. Michael has a mother and sister who he sees infrequently. Michael has a few friends but prefers his own company. Michael has a 10-year-old boy locked in his basement.

Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Markus Schleinzer Michael is a bold debut. Composed of mostly static shots, and in the claustrophobic aspect ratio of 1.66:1, Schleinzer’s camera work is never flashy or intrusive instead happier to sit and observe. This sums up his approach to the film in general as the film never truly offers an opinion of Michael (Michael Fuith) and his captive (Markus Schleinzer) opting instead to present all aspects of Michael’s life in a clinical fashion and leave it up to the audiences natural revulsion to do the rest.

With minimal dialogue and a preference for slow-building scenes the tension is almost unbearable. Just watching kidnapper and kidnappee sit down for dinner in the opening scene, cutlery scraping on plates as they eat in silence, was a stressful experience. Schleinzer never makes us watch the worst of Michael’s abuse, leaving those moments we don’t see in the basement up to us to fight not to imagine.

What we see instead is a lonely man and a trapped child with a relationship not totally dissimilar to that between father and son. Micheal and the boy share some almost tender moments together when decorating a tree or solving a jigsaw puzzle. Briefly you could forget that the boy is there under duress, but you don’t forget for long.

There are a few twists and turns in Michael‘s final act and by the end I had my hand clasped to my mouth; I was so tense I could have screamed. Superbly made and a tough watch Michael is a harrowing film which can make the monstrous seem mundane. Recommended with caution; be sure you know what film you are going to see.

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Directed by acclaimed Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland In Darkness is set in Nazi occupied Poland as the resident Jews are hounded out of the ghetto of the city of Lvov. Keen to avoid imprisonment or death a group of Jews decide to hide where the Nazis won’t think to look, deep within the sewers of Lvov. Sewer inspector Leopold (Robert Wieckiewicz) seemingly has no loyalties; he is happy to scavenge what he can from the wreckage of the ghetto, yet when he finds the Jews hiding in his sewer Leopold does not immediately hand them in to the Nazis for a reward. Instead Leopold charges the Jews a daily rate for keeping their secret, helping them find their way through the sewers, and to provide food so that they do not starve down amongst the sewage. What starts as a financial arrangement slowly develops into something deeper as Leopold loses loved ones and risks everything he has to keep “his Jews” safe from persecution.

Any film dealing with the holocaust is not going to be a cheery one, and In Darkness with its death and destruction above ground and cowering refugees below is no exception. Above ground the outdoor scenes are shot with a harsh stark light, everything is cold and hard; fallen bodies in the opening scenes are blindingly white and the segregated city is mostly rubble filled with abandoned possessions and children’s toys. Death is everywhere. Below the ground everything is damp and dark, you can almost smell the sewage the persecuted Jews are forced to wade through and live alongside. The only light below the ground comes from torches or candles, a sharp contrast to the bright exposure above. Over time the sewers seem almost cosy in comparison to the atrocity filled world on the surface – you can see why the Jews would prefer to live in filth than amongst Nazis.

In a film with such unrelenting bleakness there is a real need for something positive to keep you engaged and from simply feeling depressed, and this is where Leopold and his Jews comes in. At the film’s start neither is particularly likeable; Leopold is a selfish man out to get what he can and the Jews are a wonderfully diverse bunch of characters with their own mixture of vices and virtues. As their relationship deepens the two sides come to care for and depend on each other. In Darkness is at its core a blossoming love story between a single man and the group of people who depend on him. Once you start to root for everyone involved, and Leopold starts to risk exposure to keep the group safe, you realise that the film has slowly drawn you in and with that you’re hooked.

There’s something all the more convincing about a film with great actors, none of whom you recognise. Brad Pitt will always be Brad Pitt while Robert Wieckiewicz could well have actually been Leopold the sewer inspector for all I know. The actors are uniformly brilliant and their performances all ring true. I was constantly worried that any number of the characters would die at any moment and when the death came I felt each one. In Darkness is a dark film set during a terrible time in our world’s history but the film does have its lighter moments too – there’s a reason the word “uplifting” is writ large on the poster.

In Darkness is a powerful, dark and ultimately beautiful film. It starts off cold and bleak, death all around and no one seeming to want to help anyone else without the promise of financial gain. By the end of the film it was clear that I’d been watching a love story, not one between two individuals, but one between a man and the collection of Jews he was trying to keep safe. A word of caution – the film is well over two hours long and I felt every minute, be prepared for plenty of reading too as this is a holocaust film in the original languages (at least four) used in Poland at the time. In short the film is great but also long and Polish so be careful.

In Darkness is on limited release on 16th March 2012.

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How to tackle a review for a film with such low ambitions?

Project X is a found-footage film following three High School friends who want to throw the ultimate house party… and very little else besides. I imagine the aim of the project was simply to capture the energy and excitement of attending this “epic” party gone awry (over 1,000 party-goers in one house) as tops come off, ecstasy pills cascade from swearing gnomes, and the bass thuds from two competing DJs. In this respect the film partly succeeds; the party looks and feels authentic, though I was acutely aware that I wasn’t actually there but watching other people have fun on the big screen.

For the film to have any kind of resonance it needed to connect the audience to its characters, but the three nerds at the centre (no matter how familiar to me) were for the most part irritating boys looking to get drunk, sleep with girls with “big titties”, and attain some kind of legendary status at school. Mission accomplished for them perhaps, but I just got annoyed with the guy in the row in front who insisted on whooping and clapping like he’d never seen moving images before.

The film’s only attempt at having a semblance of plot or character arc was with the tentative romance between birthday boy Thomas (Thomas Mann) and his childhood friend Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton). Even this fell flat as it was given all of 10 minutes to develop and Thomas spent more screen time pursuing the token hot (and easy) girl from school. This is one time when even a pretty blonde can’t help.

I will admit to laughing a few times, particularly at the deadly serious and adolescent security guards, but with each giggle I felt a growing sense of shame. This is the type of film which includes a dwarf actor only so that he can be shut in an oven before going on a rampage, hitting a series of guys (and girls) in the groin before driving a car into the pool.

The plot (what little there is) of a wild house party and rampaging drug dealer (I forgot to mention him but refuse to go back and amend this review), is straight out of the first episode of Skins where the storyline was done in half the time and without the need for a flame-thrower.

Project X is an escalating disaster without depth, plot or character and it wouldn’t have it any other way. Amazing that a film so squarely designed as wish-fulfilment fare for teenage boys has gotten itself an 18 certificate, mostly due to the film’s lack of consequence. All this from Michael Bacall, co-writer of the Scott Pilgrim film. Tut.

Project X is out on wide release this Friday 2nd March but you are far too good for it.

2 Stars = Quite Unsettled

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McG has always been pretty much hit and miss. Well, not hit and miss per se; he hits every time but the quality of that hit only really makes it to first base, never coming close to a home run (to use an embarrassingly bad analogy). He’s directed the Charlie’s Angels movies, the [mostly] uninspiring Terminator Salvation and has been behind television shows such as angsty The O.C. and spy-comedy, Chuck. These were enjoyable for what they were supposed to be but were, for the most part, also stamped with far too many lingering shots of women jiggling their jugs, cringeworthy humour, OTT action and plots that bordered on the inconceivable.

This Means War appears to be more of the same from good ol’ McG: two male spies fancy a lady, the lady sells herself out dating both of them and we watch as all morals collapse into nothingness as the two professionals quickly turn into children with the power of the CIA behind them as they fight not for love, but for laughs, bragging rights and, well, Reese Witherspoon (oh, wow, winner). I’ve read tweets calling for the film to have been released on February 14^th because they think this is a romantic film. Spoiler alert: it is not. Not remotely. But it is a hoot.

Packed with emasculating humour and the aforementioned boobs and action, This Means War is an enjoyable film at best. Surprisingly, it may be one of McG’s better outings as the cheesiness of it never really quite reaches the unbearable embarrassment of Charlie’s Angels or The O.C. Obviously, however, such corny laughs just aren’t for everyone as was proved to me by the gentleman I was sat next to whom barely cracked a smile whilst the rest of the auditorium was heaving with guilty laughter at some of the film’s more funny moments.

The surprises keep rolling as what I had assumed would be the worst part of This Means War (the casting of such talents as Captain James T. Kirk and Charles Bronson in a ‘romcom’) actually turns out to be a spot of excellence. Like the success of Gerard Butler before him, Tom Hardy’s tough guy image paired with his Britishness immediately makes you wonder why he hasn’t been in more comedy films before and Chris Pine is just a sexy hunk with a sharp tongue whom I’m sure all the ladies of today’s generation “well fancy”. On the female batting team is Reese Witherspoon who puts in an okay performance as the ‘lucky’ lady but Chelsea Handler’s arrogant best friend role is just genius, stealing any scene she’s in, and then there’s also the cute Rosemary Harris (Aunt May, people!) who I just wanted to hug and never let go of.

Going to see This Means War is a bit like when you go clubbing and realize you could have just as much fun at home with a cup of tea, but you still enjoy all the incomprehensible goings on in front of you as the overlaid heavy beats of techno and rap attempt to destroy your ears – because McG still thinks he’s 14, obviously. You might regret not seeing it at the cinema with friends but shame on you if you enjoy it just as much when you make the guilty pleasure purchase of it on DVD.

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