The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

Rating: 7/10 (23 November 2014)

When Katniss destroys the games, she goes to district 13 after District 12 is destroyed. She meets President Coin who convinces her to be the symbol of rebellion, while trying to save Peeta from the Capitol.
Producers are making money with the saga so why not split one book into two movies? Twilight did it, Harry Potter did it and The Hunger Games is doing it as well. I am not a huge fan of the first Hunger Games movie, but I loved Catching Fire. It was a very smooth and well directed movie by Francis Lawrence; who is taking over once again for MockingJay. At the end of Catching Fire you were literally burning to see Katniss and everyone go against the Capitol and kill them all. Actually I was pumped to see what will happen. Unfortunately, MockingJay Part 1 is just an extended trailer for Part 2, nothing interesting and relevant happen until the last 20 minutes of the movie. They are trying to stretch the events of one book into several movies but the thing is that even the tiny details are not that interesting and exciting to watch. This film deals with how you run a rebellion against an evil empire, giving endless political and motivational speeches, this on purpose to be filmed for propaganda. It's not enough to keep the viewers check in through the whole run time of the film. However, I liked the fact that this film takes The Hunger Games to another level as you have to think things through all this propaganda and point of views, the political intrigue is good. It approaches the story and The Hunger Games world from another angle, different from the first two movies. Nonetheless, the shaky cam is back from the first movie and there is not much action aside this trailer scene where Katniss is shooting an arrow to a jet. Jennifer Lawrence is obviously a fantastic actress and gives a great performance once again but coming back to the first movie I don't see how Katniss' character grows, matures and learns anything. She is the exact same character she was in the last one and the one before. Consequently you don't get to catch the interest of the viewers with a main character, this added to a movie where nothing really happen, the viewers are checked out pretty quickly. In fact, all the performances are very good, the drama is very well done but the characters who are actually interesting don't get to do anything beside sitting around, talking and give speeches. For instance there is a really tense scene in which Gale, starring Liam Hemsworth, explains how District 12 has been destroyed and how he could have done something more to help people to survive. This scene is also dealing with his relationship with Katniss, and you get to see that Gale's character is really deep and interesting but in reality you don't care about him that much. Finally, in the last 20 minutes of the film I was relieved to watch the proper movie beginning and building tension for the big finale, but then, it ends.
Overall, MockingJay Part 1 is a well directed and good looking movie filled with potentially awesome things that never really reach the proper core of the film, nothing really mesmerising happen throughout the run time.