My history with The Hunger Games is brief: I read the first book and randomly watched the second movie.
Technically a prequel, this film seemed a little intriguing.
I liked the new cast, and my curiosity was piqued by how split the critical consensus was.
Maybe it would be more obvious if I had watched the rest of the series, but it never felt like the movie was referencing things to come.
This film feels completely self-contained. It does not end on some kind of cliffhanger.
I could track where the character ended up, and the 158 minute runtime never drags.
Having the lead character be someone outside the games makes for a different dynamic.
Lead actor Tom Blyth is a little too malevolent, but it works for the characters’ descent.
He is introduced with a wing down, piecing together an outfit that will not betray his family’s former position. Even before we meet his classmates, Snow is positioned as a familiar underdog - the outsider trying to infiltrate a world he is not allowed into.
That initial grounding provides a brief sliver of sympathy that the film breaks down: Snow’s hunger to survive ultimately overwhelms any of his positive qualities.
It never feels like he will convert to the side of the angels, but the film manages to remain compelling as our protagonist tries to convince himself that his selfishness is actually altruistic.
While I think the movie has a decent handle on the character, I was a little underwhelmed by Blyth.
He is not bad, but there is a slight monotony to his approach that almost works against it. He almost feels like too good casting for where Snow ends up - not to play with words, but there is a chill to Blyth that works for the character’s final form. It just feels a little too preordained.
But then again Titanic works even if you know the ending, so maybe his performance is not as much of a flaw as I think it is.
Blyth might be a little one-note, but the film is bolstered by the rest of the cast.
Even for an outsider, the cast of previous Hunger Games have been impressive - and that threshold is upheld here.
Peter Dinklage (as the creator of the Hunger Games) brings a pathos and haunted sense of humility that is more horrifying than the more overt villains of the piece - he is the one person who recognises the monster that he has become.
Viola Davis has fun as Dr. Gaul, the head gamemaker of the 10th Hunger Games and the person who first implemented them. I am not sure I have seen her play so big before, but she is effective as an over-the-top villain.
Jason Schwartzman plays the cheesy host, Lucretius "Lucky" Flickerman, his self-involvement is hilarious (he is the one real source of humour in the film) but also used to highlight the callousness of the society. It is a sliver of sub-Verhoeven satire in a film which is mostly successfully - trying to present its version of dystopian politics.
The film’s secret weapon is Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird. I cannot speak to her accent work, but she brings empathy and a flinty self-reliance as Snow’s potential love interest.
She is an effective counter to Blyth’s chill, and the movie even takes advantage of her singing talents.
One of Zegler’s co-stars from West Side Story, Josh Andrés Rivera, is also effective as Snow’s one friend Sejanus Plinth.
There are so many songs in the movie, and - most surprisingly - they are not in the style of Zegler’s breakout. The movie’s songs are a collection of roots/country analogues, stories of lost loves, hard living and endurance.
It is in aspects like this that the fact that this movie is part of an established brand is a blessing. The filmmakers have the licence to break from the formula.
The movie is partially premised on Lucy’s singing, to such an extent that the movie starts to function as a musical, even down to the narrative structure (you can imagine a stage version of this movie - Act 1 the Capital and Games; Act 2 in District 12).
There is a specificity to choices like this that kept me interested.
The best compliment I can give the film is that it is earnest, and avoids undermining elements like Lucy’s songs with self-defeating humour.
None of the set pieces are particularly original, but director Francis Lawrence shoots the games with a sense of geography.
The filmmakers are also not interested in being an action movie.
The game sequences are horrific, with the tension based around whether people will avoid dying horribly.
The second half of the movie makes a hard pivot away from the Games, as Snow’s strategy for winning the games is rendered meaningless and his exile from the Capital gives him an opportunity to be deprogrammed.
This section is fascinating but on reflection feels somewhat compressed compared with the more expansive Games subplot. In a way, the reduction in scope benefits the characters, as the film foregrounds Snow’s increasingly focused willingness to bring down those around him.
Shot in middle European locations, the film boasts some suitably brutalist settings, and the filmmakers make effective use of natural landscapes in the third act. After almost two hours of claustrophobic rooms and mazes, it feels like the characters - and the movie - has a chance to breath.
This is also the section where Blyth’s performance finally jelled. Maybe it is down to the runtime, but the smaller scale third act feels more effective as a record of the central character’s downfall. The suspense shifts from when the character will turn, to when will his friends realise their days are numbered.
An effective thriller, with an epic scope that never out-stays its welcome. Maybe I will check out the other Hunger Games after all.
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One coup attempt later, Pettits, Wellington and Venegas are on the run through the jungle.
Can Pettits get his client home?
Can John Cena be an action star?
The Marine was a bit meh, but Cena always seems a little goofy.
There is something about the way he looks, his proportions and the way he moves, that feels more comically overwrought than intimidating.
Freelance seems to recognise this element of Cena’s screen persona.
Whether it knows how to execute this element is a different story.
If it is an action comedy, it’s not that funny.
If it is an action movie, it is a little light on the action.
I spent the movie wondering if this was a comedy which had been retrofitted to be more of an action drama, or vice-versa.
The spine of the movie is kind of strong. I would not be surprised if the script reads well.
But there is something off about the movie, a shaky grasp of tone that makes it hard to get locked in.
The most interesting aspects of the movie is the lead character, who feels like a comment on Cena himself, and the movie’s progressive message.
The film’s take on the global south, and the use of military power to exploit the resources of countries in South America (and by implication, other regions around the world) is surprisingly enlightened for a movie about a steroidal muscle man killing bad guys.
This is not a subtle movie but it is interesting to see a straightforward programmer with this point of view.
Cena’s character is established as a Type A personality who cannot reconcile himself to an ordinary life with his family after his military career ended.
The reason he takes the bodyguard job is because he needs excitement in his life. His wife point blank asks him if he ever thinks how she feels being treated like his punishment for losing his exciting life.
To its credit, while Alice Eve’s wife is not in the movie that much, she is not the butt of any jokes, and she is never treated as a buzzkill.
The movie ends with Cena realising he does not miss his old life and wants to get back home.
Cena and Brie are good - she does not get to be as funny as she can be - but the real star of the movie is Juan Pablo Raba as the dictator.
He seems to know exactly what movie he is in, and the movie gains an energy, weirdness and near-satiric sensibility.
As he waxes about his role in exploiting his nation, and espouses the philosophy and strategies that have kept him in power, the movie is almost great.
New Zealand actor Martin Czokas - the greatest actor to never be a Bond villain - is solid as the scummy South African mercenary on our heroes’ tale. His characterisation feels like a throwback to the action comedies of the eighties, when the villains would be treated totally straight as genuine threats.
The movie has a decent story and great elements, but something about it never quite comes together. It feels like it should be funnier and more exciting than it is.
I want to recommend Freelance just because there is almost nothing like it in theatres. I just wish it was the best version of what it wants to be.
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Like a lot of people, I demolished Stieg Larrson's Dragon Tattoo books when they first came out. I binged the Swedish film and even made it through the miniseries extended cut.
I loved the David Fincher version, and Rooney Mara's iteration is probably my personal favourite of the cinematic Salanders.
By the time Girl in the Spider's Web was published in 2015, my fandom had run its course - and I missed the film adaptation when it was released in 2018.
Curiosity brought me back.
My memories of the Swedish sequels are vague, but my overall impression was that they felt more televisual in aesthetic and were overburdened with the novel’s plot.
The magic of that first book, and which Fincher’s adaptation teased out even further, was the character of Lisbeth Salander, and the way she emotionally connects with Mikael Blomkvist.
There is a romantic aspect to their dynamic, but what really comes through Fincher and Mara’s interpretation is a recognition that Salander has met someone who sees her for herself, without expectations.
Fincher has a misplaced reputation for being cold and misanthropic, but the ending to the 2011 film is so beautifully understated and delicate in exposing Salander at her most vulnerable point, that it is both a perfect climax to the film, and a hook for a sequel.
While it is a soft reboot, most of my interest in Girl in the Spider’s Web was seeing how, in any capacity, it conceptualised Salander.
And a week after watching it, I am struggling to remember what the conception was.
This is no criticism of Claire Foy as a performer. The film as a whole just feels ephemeral.
Every long-running franchise is never fixed in form or concept. Part of my fascination with them is watching the way franchises evolve and change. The longer a series goes on, the more expanded its canvas becomes - the changing of cast members, the shifting of creative personal behind the scenes, the influence of variables like financial success, rival franchises or changing popular tastes.
If a franchise can keep cranking out instalments, you will end up with a variety of different variations, interpretations and experiments with the idea of what this series is. I have found this as a James Bond fan, and other frenchises.
It makes a long-running series interesting.
This is a long-winded way of saying that Spider’s Web is the programmer entry in the broad umbrella of Dragon Tattoo stories.
There is nothing about this movie that feels that unique.
The film’s aesthetic feels a few steps removed from the Fincher template (down to the computer-generated title sequence).
Foy’s Salander is presented as more of an action hero, a loner whose hacking skills are even more supernatural than they were presented as in either the Rapace or Mara versions.
Even the story feels like a collection of familiar elements from previous Salander stories: Salander punishes a bad man, has a passing relationship with a minor character, holds some reserve of feeling for Blomkvist, and undergoes some rather terrifying tortures at the hands of the villains.
The film features a couple of elements which feel promising.
For the first time, Salander’s latest assignment puts her at the centre of genuinely international intrigue, with a touch of Bond in the villain’s masterplan to control the world’s nuclear weapons. This puts her in the crosshairs of an American agent (played by Atlanta’s Lakeith Stanfield), and a bland collection of masked Euro-thugs.
Salander has to become the custodian of a young neurodiverse boy who is key to unlocking the film’s macguffin. The film seems to be interested in doubling, having Salander confront reflections of herself, but her relationship with the young boy is never explored. He is just a plot device, and a cheap way to show the flinty Salander has a soft spot (just like a generic action hero).
The other element which the film tees up as its major CPU is the unveiling of Salander’s previously unseen sister Camilla (played by Blade Runner 2049’s Sylvia Hoeks).
Salander’s sister was mentioned but was never introduced by Stieg Larsson, and she was not a part of the adaptations to this point. She feels like a key to exposing a piece of Lisbeth’s past.
Her father and half-brother had appeared as key antagonists, but Camilla feels like an opportunity to add more shade and dimension to the series’ central character.
However, like Salander’s young charge, Camilla is an obstacle to be overcome. There is a sliver of ambiguity to their final showdown, but whatever catharsis the filmmakers intended is missing.
Despite its attempt to broaden the series’ scope, with more action scenes and locations, the film feels small and - despite its occasional attempts at replicating the earlier films’ darker elements - banal.
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