Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 8:12PM 
Michael C here with what I suppose is part one of my review of Mockingjay.
“I wish she were dead,” says Finnick Odair at the start of the third entry in the Hunger Games series. “I wish they were all dead and we were too,” he adds to include himself, Katniss, and all the tributes that remain in the clutches of the Capitol after the events of Catching Fire.
If that seem like a dispiriting way to start an action blockbuster rest assured it perfectly establishes the tone of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, a grim, disjointed film that is short on thrills and long on misery. Francis Lawrence’s sequel progresses from torture to bombs dropped on hospitals to the wreckage of towns strewn with skulls, all of it scrubbed down to a bloodless PG-13. Our big reward for wading through this suffering is to see our beloved Katniss strangled within an inch of her life.
I expect fans of the series will like it a lot...
It has been clear form the start that the mission statement of the Hunger Games franchise has been to produce a straight-down-the-middle Xerox of the books with as little zigging and zagging as possible. The biggest deviation from page to screen has been to sand down the source material’s sharper edges and phase out its idiosyncrasies because apparently a story about children being forced to slaughter each other as a form of entertainment should have the broadest possible appeal. The result has been films that look and sound much as we imagined but which are missing the spark of life.
The first two films skated by because they had the spectacle of the games to occupy our attention. Now that the first half of Mockinjay fails to provide a similar spectacle the underlying hollowness of these adaptations is laid bare. For a film about the unstoppable momentum of revolution Mockingjay has little sense of mounting danger. But then who has time to worry about such niceties as pacing and depth of soul when we can all compare notes on how close Julianne Moore’s President Coin looks to our mental image from the books?
It’s a shame the filmmakers aim so squarely for the adequate because Collins’ books provided the material to make one hell of a fascinating movie. Even with the lackluster execution it remains a remarkably atypical mainstream release with its emphasis on abstract political concepts over action. Mockingjay picks up with Katniss in the underground headquarters of the previously mythical District 13, now in open war against the Capitol. Mockingjay hinges on which side can deploy their propaganda star most effectively. The rebellion pins its hopes on Katniss’s symbolic power to galvanize the twelve districts into action, a position the prickly and camera-shy champion resists. The Capitol uses the captured Peetah in a series of gun-to-his-head interviews imploring the public to stop the violence. It’s a stunning trick to play on audiences, to prime them on action extravaganzas only to swerve into such cerebral areas. Mockingjay’s themes of free thought versus government oppression actually have a lot in common with Jon Stewart’s Rosewater, currently playing to roughly 1/1000th the box office.
Of course, it is only by accident that the studio released such an oddity. Mockingjay would have had an action set piece to top them all were it not for the mercenary decision to chop the story down the middle, forcing the fans to eat their veggies in this half before they get there dessert in the next. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea adapting a book series in some ratio other than 1 book = 1 movie. Indeed, there is so much rich material in Mockingjay that is only fleetlingly touched upon that one could imagine a third movie being adapted out of Mockingjay without much trouble. But then the key word there is adapted, which we all know is verboten now that Harry Potter and Twilight have demonstrated that making a fetish of obsequious fidelity to source material is the path to maximum box office dollars. So instead of shaping the material into two films they just made one big movie and hacked it in two with all the grace of a Civil War surgeon sawing off a limb. The result is an ungainly film, which still manages to feel underdeveloped despite the extra breathing room.
The biggest victim of this calculation is Katniss herself. At one point Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch leads a strategy meeting to remind everyone why they liked Katniss in the first place and we can understand why they might forget. The courageous character we fell in love with in the first two films spends most of Mockingjay on the sidelines being pushed and pulled by powerful forces. The book was able to balance this with Katniss’s internal thoughts and later scenes of Katniss taking action. In this truncated version the appeal of her character gets lost. Lawrence is gifted actress and an even better movie star, but she is boxed in here with nothing to do but alternate between angry, sullen, and traumatized. I lost count of how many scenes require her to do nothing but watch events unfold on a screen with mounting horror.
It doesn’t help the franchise has never had a clue how to dramatize Katniss’s internal struggles. This is the reason the film’s supposed romantic tension is DOA. Left to portray something that can’t be explained in expository dialogue Mockinjay flatlines. What is Katniss thinking about these two men, her only friends, both in love with her? Does she love both? Neither? Is she too occupied with survival to even think of romance? Does she prefer one but is afraid to risk losing the friendship of the other? Who knows. Go read the books.
The odds favor Mockinjay: Part 1 ending up the top-grossing movie of 2014. Looking over past films to have earned that distinction is to have a stream classic moments come quickly to mind. The water vibrations in Jurassic Park or the Batwing silhouetted against the moon. Even schlock like Independence Day is indelible schlock. It’s hard to imagine what we might remember from Mockingjay a decade or two down the road. A year later Catching Fire is already a hazy memory and writing this a few days on from my screening I find Mockingjay fading as well. It’s not a terrible film. The prevailing level of quality reached by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 is “good enough”. But it’s getting hard to cheer for good enough.
Miss Everdeen, it's the things we love most that destroy us.
Grade: C
Oscar Chances: Nil. If the first two films couldn't manage a single nomination between them.
Reader Comments (14)
I loved the Hunger Games series but my enthusiasm for this film dropped tremendously when i heard that they were going to split it in two. *Highly* unnecessary to me. I gave Deathly Hallows a pass because that was a much thicker book and I like what they did when it came to the material (especially since I constantly teared up all throughout Part II) but Mockingjay could totally sustain one film.
I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past, Gone Girl and Interstellar (among others) in either the opening night or weekend but Mockingjay? I'll get to it eventually.
Beautifully written review!
The romantic tension is also absent fromt the books IMHO
I didn't love the first one much, but I did enjoy the second and third movies a lot. I think it's a young adult adaptation that deals with interesting, relevant and adult themes with a protagonist that's very unique. She doesn't want to be a hero, she becomes one and in this movie she finally accepts that. I love that the love triangle is not really important, Katniss would go out of her way to save anyone that she loves, be it Peeta, Gale or her sister's cat. The performances are all really good, too and the cast is just terrific. I don't know, to me some people are being way too harsh on it. I remember movies like Twilight and how disgusting on every level that pathetic series was and then I look at Hunger Games and there's a clear difference in quality, entertainment and intelligence.
As for the books, I only read the second one and thought it was very poorly written. A rare case where the film is superior.
I give it a "B" and enjoyed my 2+ hours in the theater. Mockingjay was the weakest of the three books in the series, which is just barely above Divergent, Matched, and other popular YA dystopian series in quality, so if folks are trying to compare film adaptations, Mockingjay Part 1 (the film) is much better than the source material. I agree that splitting it in to two films seems greedy and ridiculous, but I'm willing to go on that money-grabbing train ride. Katniss as a character is largely reactive, not proactive, and always a reluctant hero; Jennifer Lawrence did a fine job again, even in the numerous scenes where she does nothing but look around. (The hospital scene reminded me of Scarlett O'Hara's horror at the depot in GWTW.) Remember, Katniss also has PTSD. She is fond of the boys (also super guilty re Peeta which Snow thinks is love and grateful re Gale) but love isn't her main agenda, survival is. Perhaps the lack of sexual chemistry between the actors (Lawrence/Hemsworth, Lawrence/Hutcherson) shows that the filmmakers do understand that romance isn't part of this tale, no matter how much some teen girl fans/marketers want it to be?
The whole cast is quite strong. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much screen time Moore, Hoffman, and Wright had, wished for more of Harrelson as Haymitch, and Jena Malone (who will have a bigger role in Part 2). Loved Banks again as Effie sans wigs.
This film is definitely my favorite of the 3. It focused on brain power, not spectacle. I really really enjoyed it. It felt beautifully introspective and introverted.
Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful in keeping her heroine interesting.
Julianne Moore is flawless and very different - remember most roles written for women in the position of power? - bitch, flare and glare. Not this one.
I did one of those wonderful experiments of divorcing myself from the Internet in relation to this film. Did not watch a single trailer, TV spot, interview; did not read even one pretentious (or not) article, review, twitter of FB opinion.
Then you do watch the film and you realize how refreshing it is to have an opinion of your own, formed by your unspoiled and genuine first reaction to something and that it is - SURPRISE SURPRISE - different compared to the fussy opinions of the critics in the land.
I was rewatching "The Talented Mr. Ripley" last night, and I was reminded at how skilled Philip Seymour Hoffman was in playing smarmy characters early in his career. He was perfectly detestable as Freddie Miles.
Mareko - Thanks!
Sad man - The love triangle may not be important to Katniss but it does take up a good bit of time in the films, and is a defining part of two major supporting characters, so it is on the filmmakers to develop it better. It doesn't have to be important for Katniss but they should do a better job of showing why it's not more important to Katniss. As it is, that plot element is just kinda dropped in from time to time.
Pam - I always like the reluctant hero element of Katniss, but I'd say this film gives us all of the reluctance and little of the hero.I agree that Lawrence remains strong in the role and I too longed for more Harrleson who owned every minute of screen time he had.
Everyone - Am I crazy or was the character of Plutarch totally lost from the page to the screen?
I remember him as being a high-strung Capitol person who is something of a fish out of water in the severe District 13. I am open to a change but the original characterization doesn't seem to have been replaced with anything. In Mockingjay the character acts and sounds a lot like Philip Seymour Hoffman. The only trace of the original character I could spot was in his nervous reaction to the bombing but that's about it.
@Michael C.: I agree that it's not properly developed at all and I still find Gale to be super dull. But in Mockingjay Part 1 the traingle is barely there. It's thrown in the background because there's no time for it and I enjoyed that.
Michael, you're exactly correct. PSH, may he rest in peace, is truly awful as Plutarch... Way too dour, not at all well-cast here.
Nice review. I think this movie wastes the supporting actors, either taking pros like PSH, Moore and Wright and giving them nothing interesting to do - they were all fine, but not noteworthy. And then they have some of the younger supporting cast - Jenna Malone made quite an impression in 2, and was only in one shot her; Claflin had a little more to do here, but not much; and Natalie Dormer was intriguing as Cressida - I don't watch 'Game of Thrones', so I had never seen her before, but she has an interesting screen presence - but again, she had very little to do. And then there are the two big supporting roles of Hutcherson and Hemsworth, who are both just bland and uninteresting. They would have to do something interesting before I would even deign to call them bad.
Wholeheartedly agree with this review. The movie is long, awkward and lifeless.
Would someone please explain to me why people have gone nuts over this movie. I forked out my hard-earned money to go and see it with a friend who had seen 'The Hunger Games' and recommended this one to me. Mockingjay was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Boring, superficial, and falling flat on its face in comparison to all of the hype about the most anticipated movie. I must say that the lead actress was very good in terms of acting ability but even that was not enough to save this from being a boring experience and a waste of 2 hours of time. For those who are obsessed with these silly movies and there silly sequels I can only say 'get a life'.
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