A Completely Unnecessary Film

Rating: 4/10 (2 August 2015)

Mockingjay Part 1 feels like nothing more than a cash grab on behalf of the studios behind the film. The movie moves at a snails pace (which would have been okay if it had strong writing to back it up), but nothing original seems to surface. The movie focuses on turning Katniss into the face of the revolution, but what was she before this then? Did we really need a whole movie showing us what we already knew was going to happen, whether or not she was going to accept such a role? The movie moved away from originality, which is what made The Hunger Games so fascinating and into a territory we have seen done before.
Mockingjay Part 1 adds nothing to the story which we didn't already know, we knew Katniss would be the symbol of the people (wasn't she already?), we know President Snow is a ruthless dictator, and we know revolution is happening, everything that happens in the movie we already know. I guess the one thing we didn't fully know was the fate of those left behind, but that surely does not justify this two hour movie. On the other hand, the movie does pack a solid amount of emotion into the two hours, we saw the extent of the evil the capital is willing to take just to stay in power.
But besides that, the story is not nearly strong enough to justify splitting the final book into two separate movies. Mockingjay Part 1 is all about propaganda, but that is exactly what the movie itself is, propaganda, trying to persuade us to see Part 2.