The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

One sentence synopsis: it's the last battle between the evil government and the rebels that don't want to fight for hunger anymore.

One sentence trailer thoughts: gee, it will FINALLY be over!

Hero shot is heroic.

Expanded thoughts: seriously, thank goodness it's going to be over! Don't get me wrong: I actually liked the books, I thought the first movie was decent...ish, and Catching Fire was awesome and the best of the bunch (as was the book). But Mockingjay the book was sort of a disturbing mess, and dividing it into two parts was pretty stupid. The end result is that I don't care about this movie anymore, and all the buildup in this trailer, which was actually well made, makes me sigh with annoyance instead of pumping me up.

Will I watch it? Well, duh. Perhaps not at the theater, but eventually, I will. I mean, I have already seen the other three, might as well... sigh... finish this.

Expectations: sigh...

Thanks for the nightmares.

Spectre

One sentence synopsis: Bond has to stop the bad guy for the 24th time in movie history.

One sentence trailer thoughts: for a final trailer it's really short, which might be a good thing or a bad thing.

Expanded thoughts: to expand on what I just said above, the trailer is really short by today's standards of a final trailer. That's a good thing in the sense of not giving away the whole movie, which I fully support, but since this is something we are not used to with big productions such as this one, it makes me wonder: is there some other reason? Like, the movie's kinda bad, or doesn't have enough action to be interesting? I mean, the director is once again Sam Mendes, who is most certainly a great director, but also nearly put me to sleep at some points during Skyfall, which is a cardinal sin in a Bond movie. I was also surprised by how little I care that Christoph Waltz is the villain in this movie, considering his Colonel Hans Landa is one of my all time favorite movie villains, and he was pretty good in Django Unchained as well. Judging solely from the trailer (obviously) he doesn't seem to be that special of a Bond villain. Even his Col. Landa wouldn't fit with Bond, great as he was.

Anyway, I'm really hoping this movie is more Casino Royale than Skyfall. Casino Royale was the perfect blend of solid story and solid action for a Bond movie. We need more of that. I need more of that. Make it so, Mr. Mendes.

Skull. Dead people. Spirits. Spectres. Get it?

Expectations: high, actually. This has been the Year of the Spy Movies, and I would be very disappointed if Spectre doesn't deliver.

Hell and Back

One sentence synopsis: a guy finds an evil book, friend gets sucked into Hell, guy and another friend follow in to rescue, all Hell breaks loose.

One sentence trailer thoughts: well, it's different.

Expanded thoughts: No, this is not a Tim Burton movie, but it seems like the kind of thing he would do if he went back to stop motion animation. It doesn't look great, but there's one positive: at least American animation is exploring other territories beyond kiddie stuff. Yes, it has been done before, but not as a major release (at least that I can remember). Despite the hellish imagery, there's plenty of jokes here to confuse the "can't be bothered with researching the contents of movies" parents into bringing the whole family to watch an R rated movie. Of course, there's still the question of whether what caused the R rating ("pervasive strong crude and sexual content, language and some drug use") was done purely for shock value, or if it has a point. In other words: is this a movie that I, as an adult, want to be bothered with, or is it too stupid to care about? Just because Robot Chicken can be funny in small doses, doesn't mean we want 90 minutes of it.

Expectations: meh. Probably a rental.