Hunger Games: The Mockingjay Part 1...what worked and what didn't!

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 2014)

As a big fan of the Hunger Games Trilogy, I was super eager to see Mockingjay Part 1 at the cinema on opening day. While overall, the movie is good and largely true to the book there were elements of it that just didn't work for me.
Jennifer Lawrence delivers another stellar performance as Katniss Everdeen, but somehow, she looks "too old" for the role of the 17 year old tribute. While there is no doubting her acting ability, there were times when I found myself thinking that it just wasn't working. The same applies to Willow Shields (Prim) who no longer appeared to be the "little sister"
Other returning actors, Josh Hutcherson (Peeta), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (PLutarch), Donald Sutherland (Snow) and Woody Harrelson (Haymitch) all put up great performances worthy of mention. By far and away, the stars of this movie were Sam Claflin (Finnick) and the amazing Elizabeth Banks (Effie).
For me, Julianne Moore just didn't work as Coin. I couldn't work out if it was a casting error, an acting issue or a screen writing problem but it just wasn't right.
It was evident that there was a bigger budget on this movie than the previous 2 and I do think there were things that could have been done better, but overall, I thought the movie was good. The decision to include Effie Trinkett in this move was absolutely right and it's definitely worth a watch.