The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 | Frasier, Season 4
Everdeen & Crane - sounds like a law firm, but neither are what you'd call stable...
Movie review - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
Movie summary: Katniss and a team of rebels from District 13 prepare for the final battle that will decide the fate of Panem. (IMDb)
I'm going to keep this review short, because The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 has pretty much the same positives and negatives as Part 1 and I don't really want to type out the same review for a second time. I did enjoy this movie, but it felt more along the lines of a simple 'that was good', rather than an epic single movie Mockingjay could've been.
My favourite scenes in this movie are hard to talk about because they occur in the Capitol at the end and there's a real sense of political intrigue there that could've been mined for more material if they'd really wanted to expand things, although Philip Seymour Hoffman's death one week before the ending would've made that hard to impossible if they'd even wanted to expand the politics.
I did appreciate that they kept in the deaths of 'innocent' characters too, and I don't think that they come across as shock value either. Mockingjay - Part 2 suffers because it is a war sequence dragged out longer than needed, but it at least makes you accept that people are going to die on both sides, with it not really matter if they've done anything wrong or not.
And one final piece of praise for Donald Sutherland as President Snow. I really do like him as the villain of the entire series, but especially here with his resigned annoyance at Julianne Moore's President Coin misquoting him and how he reacts to Katniss' (Jennifer Lawrence) final decision regarding his fate - it really made me think that he would've been an excellent Joker if a Batman movie had been made in his youth.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is good, but not great and means this series ends with the middle being the best part. As with Mockingjay - Part 1, there's just not enough substance here to justify an entire movie despite the generally high level of quality on display overall. It might be stating the obvious, but Mockingjay might've been incredible if it had been just one movie.
[7/10]
TV review - Frasier, Season 4
Season summary: Now separated from Maris, Niles finds himself as a bachelor much like his brother; Martin becomes involved with Sherry Dempsey, whom both the boys and Daphne come to dislike. (Frasier Wiki)
This is going to be a short review because it's going to be one of exceptions. By that, I mean there are two aspects stopping this season from being perfect, and one of those isn't even that big of an issue either. There are a lot of truly great episodes here and, for me, this is when Frasier hit top form, with even the worst episode of this season being better than most other series' best efforts.
To get the single biggest issue out of the way, it's one particular character in the form of Sherry (Marsha Mason). Frasier as a whole does have issues writing older women (we've still got Daphne's mum to come... ugh) and Sherry is no different. She's a fricking cartoon character compared to the others, and anytime she shows up, Martin (John Mahoney) gets dragged down to her level too.
The lesser issue is that there's no long-term developments or character changes this season, with things ending with everyone in pretty much the same place they were originally - Martin's relationship with Sherry aside. Again, it's not that much of a problem because there are so many good episodes and the season is so good as a whole that you won't really care or probably even notice.
Frasier's fourth season is great and the first one I'd say is 'classic' Frasier, even if the presence of Sherry brings down practically every episode she's in and stopping it from being perfect. There are so many great episodes and great moments in other episodes that it's a joy to watch even if longer-term stories don't really change at all.
[9/10]
And the games...?
No game review today thanks to actual paying job commitments - Oxenfree (pictured) is finished, but not in time for me to get a review sorted out, so that'll be coming on Monday instead. I'll get into more then, but in short: it's a good game that looks to be building to something very promising and fizzles out a bit instead.
Also, the Brecilian Forest and Werewolf Lair have been cleared in my play-through of Dragon Age: Origins, so updates on Elissa's adventures will also be coming soon. I'm also working my way through Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and enjoying it quite a bit, thanks to it very strongly reminding me of the most recent incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, which is always a good thing.
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