A Disappointment to Movie-watchers and Book-readers Alike

Rating: 4/10 (7 December 2014)

Acknowledge: as a book-reader who did not like the third installment in the first place, you may find my review a bit biased.
"The Hunger Games" series has failed to grab my attention on both the big screen and on paper. However, due to the vast improvements made between the first and second installments of the film series, I was rather excited to see how the writers would continue to improve upon Suzanne Collins' disappointing finale to the book series. Unfortunately, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay (Part 1)" delivers no such improvements and is just as slow and frustrating as the first half of the third book. If you go to see this, when you walk out of the theater, please seriously ask yourself, "what was accomplished in this movie?". The answer you give yourself should have one, maybe two, bullet points despite the 123 minute running time. This movie made it painfully obvious that producers only want to squeeze as much money out of fans as possible; there is absolutely no reason to have a two part film adaptation of Collins' "Mockingjay".
I do not believe screenplay writers should keep true to books they base their screenplays off of, that is totally up to the original author and the writer. That being said, book-readers should be happy with any changes that were made, and mad that more were not implemented. This was a BORING movie. It also makes you hate the characters we are meant to love by making them seem like the most selfish and naive people despite the experiences they have lived through. While the acting is not bad (quite the opposite really, the actors are excellent with what little they have to work with), I was relieved when the main characters were taken off the screen in order to show what was happening outside of their "bubble". I found myself much more interested in the stories of the extras rather than the boring and almost irrelevant plot that follows the main characters. It makes you want to slap them and scream "stop throwing a pity-party for yourself and do something useful for a change".
I gave this film a 4 because, while there is no doubt in my mind that I will see the final installment in theaters as well, I urge movie- watchers to wait. Wait until you have the chance to watch the first and second parts together, otherwise you will be mad and anxious until it is released. Hopefully by doing this, you will have a better impression of the film(s) than I have.