Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2

Fans of the first film should enjoy returning to these characters and the film’s vulgar humor, although the convoluted plot makes things less enjoyable. The movie makes no attempt to explain what happened in the first “Horrible Bosses,” so those who didn’t see it will be at a disadvantage. The returning cast members once again bring this film to life, and it’s always a humorously jarring watching Jennifer Aniston playing a character so against type. Chris Pine does a fair job playing one of the new characters, while Christoph Waltz is underused. The plot only barely makes sense, and is there mostly to put the characters into sticky situations and then dig themselves into deeper holes. The blooper reel shows that filming was a lot of fun and featured a lot of improvising.

*** out of *****

 

Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

Overall, kept my interest, but things dragged more often than not. It’s painfully obvious that the final book in the Hunger Games series doesn’t have enough going on the stretch the story into four hours’ worth of film. Fans of the book may love seeing many of the smaller moments brought to life, but it won’t generate much interest to average movie goers. The plot itself is interesting, but every sequence that advances the plot is followed by moments of nothing important happening. There are only a handful of action sequences, and one of the biggest ones manages to show none of the real action. While most of the characters are interesting in their own ways, only Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss gets to show any major emotions. I knew going in that the movie would end on a cliffhanger, but it was an odd one, and not something to make me want to run out and see what happens next.

**1/2 out of *****