SEVENTH SON

I was thinking I should post about this today because I would be extremely tied up for the next two weeks.

Starring Ben Barnes as the titular character the seventh son of the seventh son Thomas Ward, Jeff Bridges as Gregory the Spook, one of my favourite actresses Julianne Moore as the evil witch and dragon Mother Malkin, Alicia Vikander as Alice, Kit Harington (lead actor of last year's movie Pompeii) with a brief role as the apprentice Billy Bradley and Olivia Williams as Tom's mother Mam who is a good witch, the simple storyline was a letdown to me.

Thomas, the son of a good witch and human, was sort of destined to be an apprentice to help the supernatural master the Spook to kill a dark witch, who was once Gregory's ex-lover. What is a movie like this without a love relationship, hence the character Alice, who was the daughter of another witch and human, and Thomas fell in love with each other. Anyway, that was besides the point and I hardly think it was a pivotal part of the movie.

Interestingly, Kit Harington had a small part to play at the beginning of the movie and died shortly after being killed by the dragon. This was another recent movie of Julianne Moore's but I wasn't quite impressed with her character and role. Ben Barnes was just there to look good. I did find Mam quite an interesting character though.

Anyway, I don't think this is excellent box office material, which kind of explains why it wasn't released in December 14 with the bigger blockbusters.

Billy ensnared by the dragon's tail.

the witch in human form

Thomas and Gregory

Alice and Thomas

Mam who sacrificed herself to save the village

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKING JAY PART 1

Continuing from last year's part 2 of the Trilogy, this first half of the final part was not as entertaining for me as the earlier one.

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland etc, Katniss woke up from an underground rebel facility in District 13 where she was reunited with her mother and sister and was introduced to President Alma Coin, who was leading her army of rebels to fight the war with the Capitol. Alma wanted Katniss to be the face of the mocking jay as a symbol of the rebellion, to unite all the districts together to fight a common war. Katniss was not convinced of the cause of it but relented when President Alma Coin agreed to her request to save Peeta and the other victors from the clutches of President Coriolanus Snow of Panem.

A visit to her District 12 showed Katniss the devastation brought on to her home by President Snow for her success in thwarting the 75th Hunger Games and destroying the competition arena and uniting the Districts in staging a rebellion against the Capitol. A series of videos were broadcast to the Districts and Katniss was once again received by the other Districts as the symbol of the mass rebellion. The Capitol retaliated by releasing recordings of a brainwashed Peeta, who pleaded with Katniss and the Districts to give up their rebellious quests to destroy the Capitol. When Katniss realized that Peeta's life was on the line, they made a desperate attempt to rescue Peeta and the victors in a dangerous mission to break into the Capitol's Tribute Centre.

Peeta and the others were easily and successfully extricated from their prison, without any resistance of the Capitol, much to the surprise of the rescue team. When Peeta woke up, he attacked the delighted Katniss savagely and strangled her to unconsciousness, but not before he too was knocked unconscious. It was only revealed then to the awoken Katniss that Peeta was brainwashed by the Capitol through aversion therapy and tracker jacker venom, which fueled his desire to kill Katniss. As Katniss tread cautiously in anticipation and fear towards the treatment room where Peeta was kept, she was horrified to find him struggling like an erratic person against the tight reins that held him to his bed.

The movie ended with President Coin announcing the successful rescue of the victors to the surviving residents of District 13.

Plutarch, President Coin and Gale

President Snow taunting Katniss with white roses wherever she went

NON-STOP

Liam Neeson is really something. At 60 something, he is really an unlikely hero who struck a chord in me since I first started seeing him play an action hero years ago in the movie "Taken". His voice was strong, commanding and forceful, which served him very well recently as the voice-over of the schizophrenic policeman in "The Lego Movie".

I think this movie came out at a bad time when the MH370 plane from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing few weeks ago. This movie is about terrorism but Liam Neeson's character Bill Marks the air marshal was framed to be the scapegoat. Much as he wanted to save the flight and its passengers from going down, he was set up to take the blame and news of him taking over the plane was broadcasted all over the international news. Fortunately for his wit, he was able to help the co-pilot secure a safe landing with no casualties, other than the terrorists and a few unfortunate victims. I was gripping the edge of my seat throughout the movie.

Sadly, in real life, no one truly knows what happened to the missing plane yet.

Julianne Moore as one of the passengers who helped Bill