Well paced and thought out, beautifully tragic

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2014)

I was invited to the London premiere for Mockingjay, and as a reader of all of the Hunger Games books I was surprised that for me, Mockingjay is perhaps one of the most well made.
It might be perceived as 'boring' because of less death and focus on the games, and more on the political strategies of a nation in uprising, but its beautifully done. I was also very glad to see that they did not leave Finnick's prostitution by the Capitol out of the film, which I had been concerned about due to the rating. The politics is very heavy, but as this is something that personally interests me I was only more intrigued. You see a breakdown of the nation and the characters themselves- a completely different side to the facade some of them held in previous films.
The themes of this film are very dark, which may turn some people off of it, but I think were portrayed well. Staying true to the book, with some added extras like actually getting to see the extraction team get the Victors out of the Capitol, the film felt longer than it was but covered a lot of well thought out ground during that time. The acting from all was superb, which I had been concerned about as they added new people to the ensemble, but they worked together and created believable characters in believable situations.
I left frustrated about the ending, which I suppose was their main aim, and ready to see more. I would however say that they learnt their lessons from the first two films with this one, and not leaving out plot points that were quite important in the books was clearly one of them.