The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Review part 1
It could have been worse in so many ways.
Back in 2008 Hollywood conducted a mad science experiment and created the first film based on a crappy teenie bopper pseudo science or fantasy fiction book. Twilight stumbled around the local countryside wreaking up the place, terrorizing the local population, and infesting the world with sizzle chested man/boys, bland emotionless manikins masquerading as lead actresses, dialog that could be considered a crime against the spoken language, and glow-in-the-light vampires. Most thinking humans recoiled in horror at the abomination the film industry had created, but unfortunately a lot of really young, inexperienced, lonely, and/or just plain dumb girls with loads of disposable income fell in love with the creature and gave it money to make continuing the experiment worthwhile.
So the experiments continued in hopes of creating another perfectly horrible/lovable lab creature. Most failed miserably (cough cough the Host, Mortal Instruments cough cough) and ended up as a random slurry of bio-hazardous waste at the bottom of a noxious oubliette. A few proved relatively viable (Divergent) and stumbled around bumping into things and vomiting like the first cloned sheep after six hours in the Tilt-a-Whirl. It was inevitable that eventually Hollywood would come up with a creature stable, easy on the eyes, and capable of not only functioning in society but actually entertaining people who aren’t still wearing braces and that creature is the Hunger Games.
I can’t honestly say I am a fan of the Hunger Games. I appreciate what it is and where it fits in the landscape of the film experience and find the characters engaging and interesting, thus resulting in me caring about the action. Acting is good and the story doesn’t make me want to punch the writer. Production values very high and camera and editing spot on. However if Hollywood were suddenly sucked into a giant sarlacc (fingers crossed) and Part 2 were never made I don’t think I would lose a lot of sleep over it. Based on the fan base and their probably expectations I can use my magnificent brain to figure out how this series is likely to end even without having read the book. No one ever takes a chance in main stream film these days so unless I wake up in Bizarro world tomorrow I fully expect President Snow to have a date with the business end of one of Katniss’s arrows soon.
(As a side note, I know I’m not a teenage girl or even a little into men (all man here baby) but can anyone look at that Twilight poster from the movie t shirt collection and honestly say they don’t want to put their fist into that dudes face? Heck I almost want to punch out the girl just for showing up on the same poster. I think Mother Theresa would (and probably could) happily kick Edwards ass.)
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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Review part 2
So this film is the top of that heap but being the best of the worst is not always the same as being good. This film has it’s issues and compared to what I consider a good movie it is at best trivial and mediocre. Unless you have something invested in the film (like, say, you read the books over and over again and dream of yourself as Katniss (or boy Katniss)) you will be reasonably entertained for 123 minutes and go home vaguely pissed that they stretched this last film into two movies while going about the rest of your life. It is good solid entertainment but it won’t blow your mind the way A Clockwork Orange did to me at 17.
I guess the issue I take with this film is up until now the series has been relatively smart. Stuff made sense and I didn’t feel let down by the characters doing stupid things. However once they raised the scope of the film from a Battle Royale reality show and your concern for the individual characters you care about into a country wide revolution the individuals have to get a whole lot stupider to keep the plot going. 
I spotted about 8 different ways President Snow could have ended the revolution (most of them rhyming with “puclear” or “bustained sombardment”) but he wants to play head games while his white armored Stormtroopers seem to have forgotten which end of their assault rifle the pew pew comes out of when shooting at guys climbing trees 20 feet away. Meanwhile the revolutionaries get equally as stupid in order to properly fall into obvious traps.
Also while I enjoyed this film in general the padding was pretty blatant. How many times do we need to see a wrecked field of human corpses in order to establish that President Snow is evil? Also what is the deal with him being so evil? A little character development on President Snow would be nice. Did he start out evil and just take joy in killing innocent children or did he have to work up to it? Does he really think he is doing something good? It’s rare that someone wakes up and says “Today I will be a total bastard”. Most people think they are doing the best they can but he was so evil that he turned into a caricature and thus lowered the actual impact of the movie. He felt a lot like Dr. Evil and therefore turned Katniss and her crew into Austin Powers.
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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Review part 3
Actually now that I think about it another issue was the lack of character development for some of the secondary characters. It’s only been a year since the last film but I was really struggling to remember who Finnick was or why I should even care. He had something going on but honestly faded back into the morass of good looking young white guys who infest these films lik hipsters are infesting my home town. I would be hard pressed to tell him apart from Gale. There were two other tributes besides Peeta but put a gun to my head and I still couldn’t pick them out from any one of the 100,000 jumpsuited Caucasians. The only characters that stood out were the ones that had something distinctive about them (Boggs was the black guy, Effie looked like she was going through chemotherapy, Haymitch was the only male who didn’t look like he escaped from Abercrombie & Fitch island, President Coin had long hair, and Plutarch was of course Phillip Seymore Hoffman).
The action was fun but clearly shot with 14 year old girls in mind. If unarmed humans charging trained troops armed with automatic weapons had been a viable strategy WWI would have ended in about a week. Also I know it was important to show Katniss as this super hero but shooting down jet bombers with a bow and arrow is pretty laughable even with explosive arrows. While I was having fun watching this film I could feel might thumb twitching hoping to find the fast forward button. Pacing was sluggish and they could have dropped about 40 minutes of Primrose in my opinion (book fans don’t hate on me please).
But in the Valley of the Blind the one eye man is king and this film is the pick of the litter. It might even have two eyes. While most of the factions got stupider at least the overriding story isn’t lame and all the actors can and do act. 
You buy Jennifer Lawrence as a girl caught up in events beyond her control and while the nature of her actual feelings for Peetah (or boy toy Gale) remains as mysterious as the joys of a womans body does for me at least you get the feeling she actually does have them (this line from one of our funny t shirts I think I have heard in my head about once a week for my entire life).
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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Review part 4
The story. It pretty much picks up with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) in the hands of revolutionaries while Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is being held in the capital. The rebels are led by President Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Phillip Seymore Hoffman) with help from security heavy Boggs 
(Mahershala Ali. He was in the 4400. I thought he looked familiar. The image I pulled from one of our novelty t shirts). They want her to be their spokesperson but Katniss wants nothing to do with it until she sees Peeta on the TV pitching how great President Snow is or something (Snow is Donald Sutherland and is great). She agrees to help them as long as they rescue Peeta. She goes out into battle and gets filmed bitching about how evil the Capital is (no argument here) while up to her knees in the burnt corpses of her former friends and neighbors. Show proves how evil he is by bombing a hospital and then the revolutionary base. A team is sent in to rescue Peeta and when he gets back they find the bad guys messed with his mind.
You know when you add it up that’s not a lot of events for 123 minutes. They really were stretching this out into two epics. At least they aren’t calling it the Hunger Games Saga. So do I recommend you see it? If you saw the first two (or read the books) absolutely. If you didn’t you will be lost without a paddle. Very little will make sense starting with who is this chick and why is she cool with going into battle against modern soldiers armed with a bow and arrow. This film does not stand alone well. Honestly my recommendation means very little for movies like this because either you are inclined to go or not. There is no middle ground for someone who saw the first two films but is on the fence for this one. I will say if you are dating someone who is into the Hunger Games it is well worth your time. She will love it and if you watch the first two on streaming (or just skim the Wikipedia story synapses) you will probably develop a connection or something like that with her. Let me know what that is like. Bathroom break? Go when Haymitch is telling Katniss about the Peeta rescue. That’s when I went.
Thanks for reading. I have Dumb and Dumber To to do tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook (and in real life please. I have serious self esteem issues), etc. Talk to you soon.
The Infamous Dave Inman
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