I was blown away with how well this was done because the trailer made it look like garbage. I've read the original trilogy and seen the films, and I always hated Snow, who wouldn't. It's easy to hate Snow here, BUT Tom Blyth does a phenomenal job, this movie rises or falls on him and he carries it, if this isn't a star making turn for him, I dunno what would be. I despised Snow in the original trilogy, he's obviously only presented as the evil dictator he is, but he's very keen and intelligent, even though you hate him. Here, although I felt repulsion towards Snow at times, I was rooting for him to choose good, we know the inevitable end, but again Blyth does such a phenomenal job of conveying the characters inner dilemmas; we see the constant push and pull off his wanting to do good, but also his selfish ambition, and the desire to walk in his father's footsteps. He does have guilt, but not enough to turn him around, we see this many times as the movie goes on.
I felt the transition of him from morally specious to evil was mostly believable, again, because of Tom Blyth's powerhouse performance. I definitely had sympathy for him and I understood where he was coming from. I also felt the transition Snow made at the end felt a tad rushed, but this was a character on a knifes edge, teetering between what's right and selfish ambition. This is, for me a very welcome change in modern mainstream films. Instead of a boring action film, we get a philosophical character driven film, it's very refreshing, and I'm glad this was 160 minutes, not 2 movies, that would have bored People to tears.
The rest of the cast is decent, Viola Davis is horrifying, but she never overplays it, Jason Schwartzman does a solid job as Flickerman, Peter Dinklage is solid as always, however, Rachel Ziegler is not a very good actress, she has little emotional depth, but her singing, wow, I knew she had to have been trained, and I was right. I saw her in Westside Story, but she wasn't nearly as good there, in fact I left that movie halfway through because I was bored, I hated what they did to Maria, they ruined her character and the singing was mostly bland. She does a very good job here with the songs, her singing here, however, is some of the best singing I've heard in some time, I'm a little perplexed why she's not a singer after watching this. I suppose material is the issue, if you're not a songwriter, you have to find good material, which is tough.
I liked the story, though Id like to have seen a bit more of Tigris, she was a good character and she truly cared about her cousin and hated seeing what he was becoming. I enjoyed seeing the capital in it's early days before it became a complete hedonistic hellhole. I really liked the setting of the primitive games and how they initially treated tributes, it was interesting, and I liked seeing how Snow played a direct hand in what the hunger games later become. Those were the more exciting parts, once it got to the final part, Peacekeeping, it definitely slows down, but it still held my interest, and it took some surprising turns.
Overall, worthwhile if you have a good attention span and don't mind movies about evil people.
I felt the transition of him from morally specious to evil was mostly believable, again, because of Tom Blyth's powerhouse performance. I definitely had sympathy for him and I understood where he was coming from. I also felt the transition Snow made at the end felt a tad rushed, but this was a character on a knifes edge, teetering between what's right and selfish ambition. This is, for me a very welcome change in modern mainstream films. Instead of a boring action film, we get a philosophical character driven film, it's very refreshing, and I'm glad this was 160 minutes, not 2 movies, that would have bored People to tears.
The rest of the cast is decent, Viola Davis is horrifying, but she never overplays it, Jason Schwartzman does a solid job as Flickerman, Peter Dinklage is solid as always, however, Rachel Ziegler is not a very good actress, she has little emotional depth, but her singing, wow, I knew she had to have been trained, and I was right. I saw her in Westside Story, but she wasn't nearly as good there, in fact I left that movie halfway through because I was bored, I hated what they did to Maria, they ruined her character and the singing was mostly bland. She does a very good job here with the songs, her singing here, however, is some of the best singing I've heard in some time, I'm a little perplexed why she's not a singer after watching this. I suppose material is the issue, if you're not a songwriter, you have to find good material, which is tough.
I liked the story, though Id like to have seen a bit more of Tigris, she was a good character and she truly cared about her cousin and hated seeing what he was becoming. I enjoyed seeing the capital in it's early days before it became a complete hedonistic hellhole. I really liked the setting of the primitive games and how they initially treated tributes, it was interesting, and I liked seeing how Snow played a direct hand in what the hunger games later become. Those were the more exciting parts, once it got to the final part, Peacekeeping, it definitely slows down, but it still held my interest, and it took some surprising turns.
Overall, worthwhile if you have a good attention span and don't mind movies about evil people.