Friday was movie day, as occasionally comes around. And unexpectedly, 10 Cloverfield Lane was the new movie of the weekend. I’d been interested in this since I heard about it, and the lone preview I’ve seen helped that interest along, so.

Short answer: I liked it. But, here’s the problem with naming your movie after Cloverfield[1]: if the new movie is a direct sequel or shared universe sequel or prequel of the original, then the tension of the unknown is greatly reduced by this knowledge. Yet, by contrast, if the new movie is not directly related in some way to the original, then you’ve squandered this reduction in tension for no apparent reason. Or, even worse, tried to trick people into thinking they should be worried about the tension of the unknown when they shouldn’t be. No matter which thing is going on, my real point is this: if your audience is sitting there thinking about relationships to other movies and whether they make sense or even exist instead of fully paying attention to the movie you made, probably the title should be different.[2]

In a valiant attempt to avoid spoilers, I’m not saying which of those possibilities occurred, but I’m definitely saying I was thinking about this more than I would have liked. Especially because, late act revelations that the movies are linked or not, this one easily had the legs to stand on its own. The first 5-10 minutes in a nutshell: The second most successful alumnus of the old NBC soap opera Passions wakes up to find herself chained up in a fallout bunker by creepy John Goodman, but the good news is that “chained up in a fallout bunker by creepy John Goodman” is currently the safest place she could possibly be, because the world is ending. Just ask creepy John Goodman!

Who wouldn’t want to watch that movie, I ask you? I’ll tell you a movie you probably haven’t seen that this was a spiritual successor to: After.Life. Man, I should watch that again. For at least two three reasons.

[1] Really, after any previous movie whose tension relied in part on the unknown; this point is broadly applicable.
[2] Or else if you did it on purpose to get people into seats and that’s the only reason, you are a bad person who should feel bad.

You know the drill by now. Some people trapped in a dystopic nightmare got tired of sending their kids off to the annual deathmatch, and once Jennifer Lawrence came along and showed them that the Capitol could be defied through the power of teamwork, they all came together to act on this new knowledge / long-standing grievance.

Other than mentioning the second act’s surplus of death traps[1], anything at all I could discuss about the plot would be a spoiler, so I’ll just say that the second half of Mockingjay’s adaptation continued to deliver on the promise of the rest of the series: to remain as faithful as possible to the original story while jettisoning everything that held it to the level of teen melodrama rather than realizing its potential greatness. I don’t know that I’ve ever said, “Naah, just go watch the movie.”

[1] Because if you can’t have teens killing each other, you can at least still have the environment trying to kill a lot of folks to make up for it; this is still a Hunger Games movie, after all!

The Hunger Games books, as I have said elsewhere, had a glaring flaw: I eventually stopped liking the narrator. As I have also said elsewhere[1], the movies have taught me that this is because of how much Katniss Everdeen doesn’t like herself. The third book has been split into two movies[2], and at least in this first half, the trend of Jennifer Lawrence portraying a much better Katniss than she ever portrayed herself through her narration continues like gangbusters.

See, there’s this civil war going on, right? Over the last two years’ Hunger Games, Katniss has demonstrated (accidentally? on purpose? does it matter, though?) that the Capitol can be fought, so now people are fighting back. Plus also there’s a secret rebel army that was lightly foreshadowed and a big propaganda war and all kinds of things that would be pretty big spoilers, so trust me: plotwise, it’s pretty okay.

But mostly what I have to say is more praise for Ms. Lawrence. Because, well, here’s the thing. I am quoting past me, after having read the entire trilogy: “the movie will succeed or fail on the strength of their Haymitch actor alone. That guy? He’s compelling.” And you know what? Woody Harrelson has done an outstanding job. But I was so very wrong, and it’s because I didn’t think Katniss could be redeemed. Instead, when I watch these movies, I see the character that the people of the Districts fell in love with, not the self-loathing, self-doubting emotional mess from the books. And the fact that she still lashes out with the same anger, collapses with the same grief, capriciously flits from one of her two men to the next and back… it was never about her actions, it was about her emotions, and this is a character I can get behind.

There’s still a movie left, but if it succeeds as well as the rest have, this will be my favorite adaptation of a series by a long mile. It kept everything good and jettisoned everything bad, and that pretty much never happens.

[1] At least, I think I have in print? Certainly I have aloud.
[2] I find myself wishing this was less common. It’s cool and all that, to my two year old memory, they are filming every scene in the book. But book adaptations are an art, and while I have nothing to complain about regarding this particular film, it nevertheless seems like a bit of a cheat to not have to go to the effort of actually adapting the book after all. Plus blah blah blah cynical money-grubbing studios, I suppose.

Cutting right to the chase, the cinematic adaptation of Catching Fire was superior in every way to the first film, and more than that, it told a better story than its source material did. So there’s quite a lot of good here.

See, the really quite spectacular Jennifer Lawrence[1] has been given much better material this time around, and what looked in the book like a girl stumbling blindly into the role of hero of the rebellion looks here like a game of cat and mouse between Katniss Everdeen and President Snow. (In case I’m pretending you already know what’s going on in the sequel of an adaptation of a trilogy of books, I am. In case that bothers you: there’s this girl who not only won an annual deathmatch designed to keep the common folk down on bended knee before Snow’s Capitol, she beat the system and won for her boyfriend(?) as well, which nobody has ever done before. She made Snow look symbolically weak, and people have become inspired by her, and this entire movie is basically a reaction to that premise. Also, there’s another deathmatch, since those are annual like I said.)

Whereas in the book, I contemplated that Katniss’ transformation into a symbol of the rebellion was certainly implausible but possibly not meant to seem that way, it is played note perfect here. She’s only trying to be a good person, but everything she does exposes the hollowness behind Snow’s power, so it’s easy to see why people would be inspired by her, despite her own doubts, anger, and insecurities. And it still doesn’t hurt that you can’t see inside her head, as she is growing more likable along the film trajectory instead of less so along the one that played out in the novels.

I’m still not convinced that the mess of a third novel can be rescued, but if the same writing/directing team tackle that adaptation, I will find myself hopeful all the same.

[1] I have got to see Winter’s Bone. Probably also the movie last year she got the Oscar for?

I’ve already told you what The Hunger Games is about, back when it was a book. See, in a dystopian future (or alternate sci-fi world if you prefer, the movie makes no indications either way), twelve production districts are held in thrall of a totalitarian Capitol, partly by the extensive number of shock troops monitoring each district and partly by the annual sacrifice of their children to a televised arena deathmatch. And then there’s our heroine Katniss Everdeen, and the beginnings of possible change, and maybe a hint of a love triangle, but mostly just a really cool arena deathmatch and generally interesting characters.

Which is to say, it is extremely similar to the book in almost every respect. Sure, some scenes were trimmed back like always happens, but pretty much, this was a dead-on translation of the story. With one important exception! The story is not told in first-person, which is on one hand obvious, since what movie could be?, but on the other hand, I’m saying there’s not even any occasional narration. I’m also saying this is great news, as it makes Katniss far more likable than when you can never escape from her head, with its anger and its self-doubts. That wasn’t actually so bad in the first book, but I think it will make the next pair of movies far better than the books were.