Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Director: Fran Rubel Kuzui

Cast: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry

Have I Seen it Before: Yes…

Did I Like It: Here’s the thing. I’ve increasingly been of the opinion that some media properties have one form where they work best. Ultimately, Star Trek works at its best when it is a TV show, although there are some exceptions. Batman is best served, most consistently by comic books. Why anyone thought Transformers work beyond action figures will be beyond me, and yes, I am including cartoons there.

So, too, that it is impossible to view this movie as anything other than a good idea still waiting for its format. It’s easy to say that, as we did get this story in a far more dynamic format as a television series. The mythology (which at first blush is pretty silly) can be explored deeper. We can come to like the characters. We can tell stories different than the flimsy one involving Lothos (Hauer).

Here, things seem incomplete. Some of the wit that Whedon brought to the TV series is here, but it’s ancillary to the desperate need of the studio to force this idea into the package of an innocuous teen comedy of the early 90s. Almost none of the feminism* that becomes the core of the series is here, content instead to make the “this blonde valley girl is going to save us all” joke prop up the whole affair.

Ultimately, the idea works better as a TV show.

But, to be fair, there is that scene (really a litany of them, including a post-credit tag) where Amilyn (Paul Reubens) keeps reacting to getting staked. Over the years, it is honestly the only part of the film I truly remember, and I’m fairly certain it will only be a matter of time before that’s the only thing rattling around in my brain after this screening fades. It’s that memorable of a movie.

Also: what happened to Pike (Perry)? Does anyone know? Whedon?

*Much can be said about Whedon’s feminist bona fides now, and for that matter his credentials as a decent human being. However, judging the work on its own merits, I’m still content to label the TV show as legitimately feminist, even if the primary author’s intent is suspect.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Parts 1 (2014) and 2 (2015)

…Too Many Colons: The Rise of the Colon Army

Director: Francis Lawrence

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, and a disturbing drought of Stanley Tucci

Have I Seen it Before: No. Honestly, I’m not sure why, after I genuinely liked The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), but in the current flood of media, it just never came up on the radar.

Did I Like It: I mean… I think I still have some problems with all of the proceedings, but sure.

I’m going to review both of the final movies of this series in one entry, because—and this isn’t exactly a hot take—that’s the way this story should have been presented. 

Since filmmakers split up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010 and 2011), we’ve been having to endure the unnecessary elongation of an epic’s final act. Scenes go on forever, fan service is turned up to eleven, and an artificial cliffhanger is injected into a story that never needed or wanted one. 

Now, if I’m being completely honest, patient zero for this phenomenon was actually Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Part III (1990), although those are two films that—when someone derides them—I get irrationally irritated. The splitting—or culling, to borrow a term from this franchise—makes business sense, I suppose. If you have a hot property, why not get two big opening weekends out of your last hurrah, when you can get two for the same price? Good for the shareholders; have yet to hear an argument for why it might be good for the story.

Moving on from the artificial elongation, what we have here is your Typical Part III™, feeding off the momentum of the predecessor, and marching toward and end you can see coming a mile away. It couldn’t possibly be a spoiler to tell you that the Capitol as run by Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) is brought to its knees and Katniss Everdeen, the titular Mockingjay (Jennifer Lawrence) is at the center of the social upheaval. 

The film delivers on these intrinsic promises, and then succeeds and fails where it tries to play with these expectations. It soars when Katniss sees the sliding standards between Snow and his self-appointed successor Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and diverts her arrow. It’s less great when she and Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) are all of a sudden on board with a new batch of Hunger Games that would instell cull rich Capitol kids. And it’s even more of a thin attempt to make us feel something out of the blue when it is revealed that Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) retreat back to a life in the Victor’s Village, raising their kids, and Katniss appearing  as if she’s become completely numb to the world she helped save.

It could be worse: the werewolf kid could have decided he was madly in love with his jilted lover’s infant daughter. That’s a ridiculous plot line. I’m not sure where I heard that one…