Zoe

Best movie of the year hands down— maybe even the past few years. There was never a dull moment. The humor was amazing, if I wasn't laughing, I was smiling or in awe at the action cinematography. We especially loved Channing Tatum as Gambit! He was so hilarious in his own right. The cameos were so enjoyable and Deadpool and Wolverine's dynamic was so entertaining. 10/10 movie. It was so refreshing to watch a new superhero film without the presence of politics or agendas— just pure, raunchy humor.

Predictable story, no suspense, so much exposition. Lucasfilm's extreme desire to pander can be felt and it takes you way out of the story. They call Star Wars fans patriarchal, well I'm a female who disliked the show. They are so focused on creating strong, female leads that they neglect everything else Star Wars is about: epic saber fighting, riveting politics, space battles, good vs. evil. Padme, Leia, Ahsoka, Dutchess Satin, Bastilla, Asajj, Mon Motha, Satele Shan, Luminara Unduli & Aayla Secura, Aurra Sing, Adi Gallia... just some of the amazing female characters (who are actually unforgettable) that came from George Lucas's Star Wars. But, please, go on Disney about how neglected females are.

As someone who read the entire book two days leading up to seeing the movie, the movie is lackluster and rushed with personality-less characters in comparison. I'd like to point out that when adapting to film, OF COURSE there are things that must be dropped or changed to fit a couple hours of screen time. However, their choices in WHAT to drop/change is why I rate this movie a 2-star. The most important thing they changed was how they handled The Hanging Tree song. In the books, Lucy sings it for Snow in the tavern after the incident with killing the mayors daughter and Billy. It's revealed earlier that Lucy Gray used to meet Billy at the hanging tree to escape town and be together, thus she wrote the song originally for him— but sang it to Snow to tell him where to meet her so they could run away together. There is inner monologue (which they could've definitely just acted out as him muttering under his breath) as he thinks through the lyrics and realizes the song is meant for him. It completely brought the origin story of the song full circle and I felt was one of the biggest reveals of the book. In the movie, they don't include ANY of this and instead have Lucy just randomly appearing at the Peacekeeper base and telling Snow "meet me at the Hanging Tree at dawn". How basic and low effort can you get? My second biggest annoyance was that Lucy Gray's win in the film was so incredibly underwhelming. In the books, Reaper does not just succumb to the snakes— that makes absolutely no sense for a character who is clearly upset with the Capitol and rebels against them by laying out the other tributes and ripping down the flag. In the books, he develops rabbis like Jessup (which by the way were not spread by bats, but rather rats that infested the Capitol's zoo and tried eating the tributes as they slept... such a random and unnecessary change in the film). As a result, he tired easily and was slowly degrading— yet still guarded the bodies of the fallen tributes. Lucy Gray had to use her wits, and kept messing with the bodies to agitate Reaper. He would get up and chase her around, fixing the bodies and becoming more and more weak and dehydrated as Lucy did this throughout the day. He then drank from the only puddle of water in the arena, which Lucy tactically poisoned beforehand. The film failed to capture the complexity of Snow. Snow wants one thing: and that's to come out on top. The movie failed to capture his conflicting emotions and battle with narcissism. One of the biggest examples I can think of is when the mentor Arachne Crane was killed by her tribute in the cage (taunting her with food). In the book, Snow did not immediately jump to her aid. Not at all. In fact, he didn't even want to! He only did so because the cameras were rolling and he wanted to keep his good image intact. The movie had him instantly darting to save her. They could've easily shown him hesitating to help her and staring at the cameras before feigning care. Sigh. It's like even with the help of Collins herself, they don't understand the character they're writing. Oh yeah, and they completely left out Arachne's huge funeral scene where they strung up the dead body of the tribute that killed her, where Snow himself had to sing one of Panem's national songs to bid her farewell. The whole book, Snow is feigning wealth and pretending to care about people— especially Sejanus. The movie didn't capture his distaste towards Sejanus enough. Snow is always very annoyed when Sejanus sits by him or tries to talk to him. He loathes the Plinth's wealth and family and only pretends to be Sejanus's friend as to ONCE AGAIN keep his image intact.

Yeah, so this movie was advertised as a action/adventure/comedy, yet half of the movie was extremely depressing animal abuse and torture. I left the movie theater with a deep sadness, regardless of the happy ending. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants to watch hours of harsh animal torture and disfigurement. It was extremely unsettling. Animal abuse will make anyone cry and feel uncomfortable. Rocket's past should've been a separate, stand alone movie where the audience KNOWS what they're going to be getting into (animal abuse). The torture of cute little animals came out of no where and gave me extreme whiplash. One second you're laughing at the comedy and then they throw you into a cage of abused animals. Just because I cried, doesn't mean it was a "well-written story." Anyone will be upset seeing animals getting hurt. It was so unexpected. The sad thing is that I REALLY enjoyed everything else besides the torturing abuse and intense sadness of Rocket's past. The comedy was perfect and without all that unnecessary, extreme torture of the animals, this would've been a 4/5 star review. I feel extremely sad for all the kids in that theater because the animal abuse and disfigurement was really intense.