To me this post is very fun for me to do because I for one, love the Hunger Games series. Yet i thought both the book and the movie was a bit mediocre. I still think it definitely deserves a review though.Most of you probably already know the plot, but I'll give you a quick summary in case some don't. Katniss, the face of the up and coming rebellion against the evil capitol of Panem, has to deal with whether she wants to lead the rebellion or not. Now this film focused primarily on the political side of the story, how District 13 (Katniss' new home) is going to get the rest of the nation to help them rebel against the corrupt capitol. I find the politics of Panem pretty fascinating, and especially in District 13. The main objective they have is to film propaganda, and the team they have assembled to do so has such great chemistry, and all of the characters are very likable and quite funny.
This leads to talk about the performances in this film, and as always Jenifer Lawrence did a very good job. Her character is very fascinating as she never expected, or even wanted to be a part of any of it, so she has to to choose and deal with the pressures of those around her. It is always a pleasure watching Woody Harrelson play his character of Haymitch, along with Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket. Those two have provided a well needed comedic relief throughout the rest of a dark series. This film also lead to the introduction of a few new characters, and some past characters getting some more screen time. The performance among these that stands out the most to me is Julianne Moore as President Coin. I thought she fit in perfectly with the rest of the cast, and her character provided for the first time someone who was able to control Katniss a little bit more than we had seen done before.
As I said, there were a few characters from the past films who got more play in this one, and who I'm talking about are Prim, played by Willow Shields, and Gale, played by Liam Hemsworth. Prim hadn't been seen too much of since the beginning of the first film, or at least to this extent. I thought it was refreshing to have her character back since we were able to see how she grew and had become more independent with the absence of Katniss. I would say same goes for Gale, he gets a lot of flack, but I think he is also a very interesting character, which leads me to finally talk about Peeta, who isn't in this film much at all. I can say for what he does do though, he succeeds. He has a particular scene towards the very end which was very well done, and incredibly intense as opposed to the rest.
Now so far I have been saying primarily positive things about this film, and again I will say that I did enjoy it, but I did have a few flaws with it. Although the concept of having one film centered around the political side of the story, it at times got to be really slow. I am able to handle films that don't move at fast speed, and aren't always full of action, but I don't think that is what these films are. They are a mix of politics, action, underlying themes, emotions, and relations. Having too much of one of these and not enough of the others made this film seem like it was two different in tone to the others, and I'm not saying that that is always a bad thing,but in this case it was. Although there were a few scenes that were well done and interesting I often was wondering when it would pick up, and when I'd see what I wanted to see. It was at the end I realized that wasn't happening for another year.
Mockingjay Part 1 is not something I would call a cash-grab as many people have. It is not entirely for the money, I think the artists do believe that there is enough story that it can and should be stretched over two films. I did not agree with that though, and that is where my main issue with the film was born. Overall I did enjoy it a lot though, and it made me very excited to see the next film!
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