The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Movie Review

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire does just about everything a studio wants from its sequels. It basically repeats the successful formula of The Hunger Games, but adds a new bevy of recognizable Hollywood faces. The one thing it mercifully resists is ramping up the action. The Hunger Games was an exercise in Gary Ross’s control and his successor Francis Lawrence follows in his footsteps, keeping the majority of the action within the centerpiece installment of the “games” themselves even while the stakes have been greatly increased.

Short Cut Review: The Expendables 2

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Although I felt it lacked a lot of the sheer joy and fun of watching these guys kick ass in the first movie, this sequel still dazzles with the audacity to be bloody as hell with its gratuitous mayhem and violence. West, a director not known for restraint in action film, took over the helm from Stallone this time out. Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of the governor's chair, his role has been expanded. Bruce Willis also participates more and Chuck Norris turns up riffing on the popular "Chuck Norris Facts." Van Damme makes a less than satisfying bad guy. In spite of the sheer excess of the combat sequences, West keeps the one-on-one muscle confrontations mercifully short.