Good But Padded

Rating: 7/10 (21 November 2014)

I saw "The Hunger Games:Mockingjay-Part1", starring Jennifer Lawrence-X- Men:Days of Future Past, The Bill Engvall Show_tv; Josh Hutcherson-Red Dawn_2012, RV; Liam Hemsworth-Empire State, The Expendables 2; Julianne Moore-Carrie_2013, The Big Lebowski and Donald Sutherland-Horrible Bosses, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
It seems like a lot of franchise movies are dividing their last installments up into two movies to stretch out their box office bucks, and this one does it, too. This is basically a set up for the next movie. It's not bad but you can tell that it is padded to fill time. Anyway, if you recall in the last episode, Jennifer destroyed the Hunger Games tournament with her trusty bow & arrows and was rendered unconscious. When she wakes up, she is in District 13 which is run by Julianne as the district President. Julianne is trying to lead a rebellion against the Capitol and the evil Donald and thinks Jennifer would be perfect as a figure head to rally the troops. Jennifer does not know what happened to Josh but soon learns that Donald is using him to make propaganda videos to crush the rebellion. Liam, the spurned boyfriend of Jennifer, is still hanging around hoping Jennifer will choose him over Josh; but she just thinks of him as a friend. There is not a lot of Jennifer in action here; I can only remember her getting into a fight with her bow & arrows on one occasion, and she only fired one arrow-Of course, she took out two targets but that is what you can do, if you are a hero. Pretty soon, Jennifer is making her own propaganda videos and trying to rally her followers. FYI:Philip Seymour Hoffman died during filming, with most of his scenes completed-they filmed Part 2 at the same time, which is due next year. It ends in a cliffhanger that sets up Part 2 and there is a brief scene after the credits but it's not really a scene but more of a cryptic hint at the next installment, using the Mockingjay symbol. It's rated "PG-13" for violence and has a running time of 2 hours & 3 minutes. It's not action packed but I would probably buy it on DVD.