The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Julianne Moore

Directed by Francis Lawrence

The Story:
Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) is now living at District 13 after President Snow (Donald Sutherland) blew up her old district.  Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Johanna (Jena Malone) are prisoners of Snow's at the Capitol, and the resistance - led by President Coin (Julianne Moore) - wants Katniss to be their Mockingjay: a beacon of hope for all the Districts to band together in one final attempt to take over the Capitol.

At first Katniss is reluctant, but after visiting her old home and seeing Peeta on the Capitol TV, she agrees to do it.  She films a series of propaganda material which unites the other Districts, as they begin guerrilla warfare against the Capitol.  Meanwhile, she worries about Peeta and what Snow is doing to him, so a mission to rescue him begins.

The Synopsis:
"Harry Potter," "Twilight," and now "The Hunger Games."  Three movies based off young adult novels that decided to - probably in order to get more money - split the final book of the series into two movies.  Peter Jackson did this for "The Hobbit," but instead of making it two films he turned it into three.  There are major issues with doing this, most notably it drags the final story into two needless films when it could all have been condensed into one.  Often, it serves only as a way to be a gateway for the final film.

"Mockingjay - Part 1" is unfortunately one of those films.  While it's not a bad film, it's not as well done as the previous two.  Gone are the action sequences that made them such hits, and instead there's a lot of downtime.  I lost count how many times Katniss asked, "what about Peeta?" after ten, and it was only the first half hour of the film.  There's only one decent action scene, and it's also the only part of the movie where Katniss fires an arrow.

Jennifer Lawrence does her best here, but Katniss becomes more a shell of her original self.  She's more concerned with rescuing Peeta (even though she's still "with" Gale) than leading a rebellion or changing the world.  As a staple of feminism, she downgrades herself to a whiny, stubborn girl who just wants one of her great loves back.  She gets some of her mojo back near the end, but even that is stripped away from her.

Hopefully she gets her real groove back in the final film.  I think she will.

Oh, and Julianne Moore's talent was highly misused here, kind of like how Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts were terribly underrated in the "Divergent" series.  She could've done better.

All in all, not a great disappointment, but nothing that really "wow"ed me.

The Summary:
While not as great as the first two outings, "Mockingjay - Part 1" serves well as a bridge to the thrilling conclusion of the "Hunger Games" series.

The Score: A-