Let the Games begin... again

Liberty Theatre & Neptune Theatre

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

****

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth. 

Director: Francis Lawrence. 

Rated: PG-13

Showing: 

Liberty Theatre — Fri 9:30pm, 12.30am; Sat 1:30pm, 5:30pm, 9:30pm; 

Sun 1:30pm, 5:30pm, 8:30pm; Mon-Thurs 1:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm.

Neptune Theatre — Fri 7:30pm, 10:30pm; 

Sat 6pm, 9:30pm; 

Sun 2:30pm, 5:30pm; 

Mon-Thurs 7:30pm. Runtime: 146 minutes

Action, adventure, sci-fi.

The Districts are in revolt. People are being shot simply for raising their hands and whistling — not because they’re trying to hail a cab (they’re too poor), but as a symbol of solidarity and protest.

And Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) — the girl from Appalachia with the fierce eyes, daunting archery skills and multi-demographic fan base — is making trouble.

“She’s become a beacon of hope for the rebellion,” a worried President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) confides to the new head gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

A satisfying second instalment in the promised quadrilogy based on Suzanne Collins’ megaselling series about life in a dystopian land where a select group of boys and girls run into the woods and kill each other for the entertainment of the masses, Catching Fire is bigger, better and broodier than the first film. Life in Panem — a post-war nation consisting of a glimmering hub where an elite class of Haves stuff their faces merrily, surrounded by a ring of ghettos populated by teeming throngs of hangdog Have-Nots — is unsettled, threatening to implode.

Whether you look at The Hunger Games as an Occupiers’ parable about inequity and class warfare, or a fantasy metaphor for teen defiance, or as just a kooky story of survival in a controlled environment where, sadly, most of the contestants must die, there’s no getting around the fact that this franchise rocks. 

Speciality Theatre

Thor: The Dark World

****

Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston. 

Director: Alan Taylor. 

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:15pm,  6:30pm, 9:15pm; Sun 2pm, 4:45pm, 7:45pm; Mon-Tues 2:15pm, 6:15pm, 8:45pm.

Runtime: 112 minutes

Action, adventure, fantasy.

What weird sorcery is this? Thor: The Dark World may not be thunder from the movie gods, but it is — shock! — an entertaining journey into mystery, action and fun. Director Alan Taylor, a TV vet (Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones), has given The Dark World a streamlined feel. There’s also a jolt in here of Lord of the Rings. It has its faults, but this is in the upper sphere of superhero sequels. 

The Best Man Holiday

***

Stars: Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Terrence Howard, Monica Calhoun, Harold Perrineau, Eddie Cibrian.

Director: Malcolm D. Lee

Rated: R

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sun 2pm, 5pm, 8pm; Mon-Thurs

2:30pm, 6pm, 9pm.

Runtime: 122 minutes

Comedy.

The Best Man Holiday is a most welcome sequel to the 1999 sleeper hit, The Best Man, about a tight-knit circle of black friends who gathered then for a wedding, now to spend Christmas together.

Yes, it’s occasionally maudlin and melodramatic, and it’s entirely too long. But it’s also heartfelt and often downright hilarious, and shows off just how canny Malcolm D. Lee’s casting was all those years ago. 

Southside Theatre

Call 297-2821 for show and showtime details

All reviews MCT unless stated