The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 123 minutes

Score: 7/10 – Good

**WARNING: The following contains spoilers**

+Strengths: One more chance to see Philip Seymour Hoffman, Finnick’s exposition about Snow, good transition from the games to the current state of affairs, the revolution has begun…

-Weaknesses: …but only barely, it was long, it hit a perfect place to stop but kept going, not enough Katniss/bow combo.

The Hunger Games, a trilogy of novels by author SUzzane Collins, is now on its third of four films (damn you, and your splitting up of sequels Hollywood). The story has now evolved from a tale of children fighting for survival as a cruel way to keep the citizens of Panem in check, to a society on the brink of full blown revolution. President Snow (played by the always stellar Donald Southerland) is doing everything you would expect from a tyrannical dictator and is only fanning the flames of discontent.

Break out your Che Guevera shirts

As with the final two Harry Potter films (also based off of one book), Mockingjay Pt. 1 spent it’s two hour runtime laying the foundation for what will hopefully be an action packed finale to the series. This is unfortunate because we only get to see Katniss shoot her signature bow twice during the movie. What this does allow for, however, is copious amounts of both character, and world building. A lot of new faces are introduced in District 13, and it’s nice to get an opportunity to get to know at least them before things get too crazy.

A high point of the movie for me was the spec ops mission to infiltrate the capitol, it was a nice change of pace. It also happened to be coupled with a speech by Finnick Odair (a favorite of mine in the books) detailing the true evil of President Snow, which happened to bone chillingly phenomenal.

Team Gale for life!

My biggest gripe with this film is the startling lack of bow and arrow use, especially since it has become Katniss’ signature. I understand that these movies aren’t about the action, but there was surprisingly little considering the overall theme of revolution.

A lot of the focus this time around is on the propaganda, or propros, and what effect they would have on the remaining districts. We do get to see a little bit of 2 of the districts, but that still leaves 9 unaccounted for. Are they just sitting on their hands, or are they ready to rebel as well? Hopefully Mockingjay Pt. 2 focuses a little more on the results of the District 13’s efforts.

As with most films based on fantasy realities, there were some questionable plot holes, but all very minor, and can be easily overlooked in the grand scheme of things.

Overall

The events of this movie were but a match in the dark world of Panem, hopefully it starts a fire that is significantly bigger and far more exciting. While I don’t believe that Mockingjay Pt. 1 has been the best in the series so far (Catching Fire for me), it also hasn’t been the worst. As long as you go into it understanding that it was designed to build up to the climax and finale of the series, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a decent film and worth seeing if you’ve enjoyed the series before. It’s just a shame that pt. 2 is so far away still.

Looking forward

For those of you that don’t know, it’s worth noting that the great Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away during the filming of the last Hunger Games movies. His character, Plutarch Heavensbee, survives through the entire book series, so it will be interesting to see how this situation is handled in Mockingjay Pt. 2. The director said that he didn’t want to use CGI to digitally resurrect Hoffman, so we shall see how the writers handle this come next year.