Over-hyped mediocrity

Rating: 5/10 (22 March 2015)

This is the third movie in the Hunger Games series. I better state right away that I have not read the books so I do not know how good the books are or if the movies actually follow the book. However, if the movies are any indicator then I will probably not bother to read the books. So far these movies have been a display in over-hyped mediocrity as far as I am concerned.
The previous movies had a somewhat ludicrous setup with people running around in ridiculous hair-do and makeup. I was not too thrilled about it but at least it gave the movie some originality. So did the games themselves. This one lacks all of that. It could be any one of a dozen post-apocalyptic stories.
The movie plods along at a fairly leisurely pace, sometimes it is quite dull and slow, with some outbursts of action. Katniss herself is really not taking much active part except for being a front figure and propaganda element for the rebellion. In order to milk the series as much as possible for money (I see no other reason why it was done) it was decided to break the third book into two movies. I would say that this movie is a good example as to why that is generally not a good idea.
The acting is on par with the movie. It is decent enough but nothing to write home about. Then since most of the movie really is about Katniss hulking and moaning about the unfairness of it all it is maybe not too surprising that I found most of it somewhat uninspired and dull. The same can be said about the special effects. Actually I found most of them to be rather underwhelming. There were also a fair amount of lost moments. For instance the attack on the dam. It could have been made into something nice but instead we get a ludicrous display of a bunch of unarmed people running straight against machine guns planting some bombs and then poof goes a model dam.
Having now seen three out of the planned four movies I am of course going to see the fourth one as well but I am definitely not going to be in a rush to go and see it.