Bored (Almost) To Death

Rating: 3/10 (6 May 2014)

How can a movie this poor rate so highly? I usually find that my own score for a movie is pretty close to the overall score on IMDb. I don't always agree with the score on IMDb but usually IMDb's score is a balanced one; balanced by those who love a movie and also by those who hate the same one. A few days ago, I watched the first Hunger Games movie (well, the first one with Jennifer Lawrence that is). I thought that one was too long and not all that absorbing but, all the same, I rated it high sixes. I see that this one currently rates 7.8 on IMDb, having slipped a bit in recent times. Not surprisingly I say. Like so many movies these days it is WAY TOO LONG at nearly two and a half hours. Now, I like a good romance but the romance in this one was overdone, terribly clichéd and schmaltzy to the point of nausea. An aside here. I understand and accept that The Lord of the Rings trilogy necessarily involved three long movies, having been made from three long and complicated books. But stretching the Hell out of a small book like the Hobbit to make three long movies (I was bored to death by the first two and won't be paying a cinema admission to see the third one) is going way too far. This is so typical of movie producers these days. It probably goes back at least as far as the Rocky movies (all of which were poor I think) but it's more recently been taken to a whole new level to milk a theme in making several movies and milk the audience that pays to see trash like this. I admit that I've never read any of The Hunger Games books so I really pay can't compare the original concept to the tripe that's been served up to us here. But, tripe it is in my view. I see that the are at least two more Hunger Games movies currently in production. I can hardly wait to avoid those. Don't waste your time with this movie. Save it and see something else instead and try to make that a one off like the recent Walter Mitty which I think was just wonderful.