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Friday, November 21, 2014

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Rated PG-13 / 2 hr 3 min / Adventure - SciFi

What is it about?

When we last left Katniss she had just survived her second Hunger Games. She had tied an arrow to a cord of some special material that conducts electricity. She shoots it at the outer barrier just as a bolt of lightning hit. The force field fell apart along with the outer wall of the structure. Katniss was picked up by a rebel faction that lives in District 13. They failed to pick up Peeta, and this made Katniss very upset. Now they want to use Katniss as their mouthpiece to convince the other districts to join the rebellion. She isn't so sure that she wants to participate. President Snow makes the decision easier for her when she sees that he bombed District 12 into oblivion.

You will like it if...

You liked the first two Hunger Games movies. The Mockingjay for me was the worst of the three books in the series, so I wasn't sure it was such a good idea to split that one into two movies. This movie picks up on some of the better parts of the book. There is a lot of rhetoric with quite a bit of political back and forth throughout the film. The script contains more drama than the previous films, but it packs in enough action to satisfy fans of the previous movies in the series. The addition of Julianne Moore to go with Hoffman, Jennifer Lawrence, and others helps to bolster an already stellar cast. While not as good as the last Hunger Games effort, it's still a must see for fans of the series.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good review Brian. Though I liked it for the most part, I still can't help but feel incredibly disappointed by how abrupt its ending was.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the comment! The abrupt ending is regretably unavoidable considering the movie ends near the middle of the book. I'm sure it was hard to decide on a stopping point for the writer working on the script. I don't envy the job of those who try to adapt several days worth of reading into two hours of screentime.