The longest and most expensive trailer ever made

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2014)

I have a rather wishy washy relationship with The Hunger Games. I had read and watched Battle Royale before but I love the idea of people being forced into a fight to the death by the government. It's terrifying and so that's why I even read the book in the first place. Because knowing it takes place in the future, I wanted to see how Collins would interpret it and how it was marketable to young kids- hell, I was in grade 9 when I watched Battle Royale, and I remember throughout that year loaning my bootleg copy to several friends and before you know it, almost half the school was talking about it. And so that's why the idea of THG excited me- even though BR is an adult movie first and foremost, teens can relate to the issues presented, and i can say without exaggeration that I was not let down, because even though it's wasn't as good as BR, I was pleased that the intensity and brutality of BR was not lost with Collins' interpretation. Sure it isn't the most well written book, but it was so intense I found myself on a cold autumn afternoon in 2009 at home, on the edge of the couch and frantically turning each page to see what happened next
And then the sequels came, and I was disappointed. CF had so many great ideas but didn't utilize them properly, and Mockingjay was a mess of ideas that failed to resemble a story. Skip to a year and a half after the release of Mockingjay, I was at a midnight screening of the first movie, and as much as I found it problematic as an adaptation, it at least was entertaining. A year and a half later, I'm back at the same IMAX auditorium to see the sequel, and amazingly, I loved it enough to consider it one of my favourite films of the year. It captured the intensity the book couldn't. The ideas were there, but a book wasn't the best way to capture it. Now it's a year later and I'm just back from a preview showing of Mockingjay Part 1 and wondering why I was left so cold even though I went in knowing exactly what I was in for. Gut instinct, maybe? I hope
Mockingjay is not going to change your mind about the book if you didn't like it, but because of my completist ways, I went and saw it anyway. And the problem was that it was too much like the book- a scattered collage of entertaining bits with equal amounts of filler. In fact, this film is beginning to make me wonder if maybe the series only seems awesome because of the first book's honest storytelling and the second movie's sheer intensity and electricity
The problem here is that it only makes Collins' seeming inability to balance out blazing hot action with quiet drama, and a movie-exclusive problem is that it seems to fail at emotion and drama altogether. The scenes where a brainwashed Peeta is forced into feeding the districts pro-Capitol propaganda as a devastated Katniss watches should be heartbreaking and saddening- problem is they are for the wrong reasons. They're heartbreaking and devastating because there's so many blown opportunities and you could almost imagine the writers go, "have them start crying, that will trick the audience." The same thing happens when Katniss visits District 8 all armed with a documentary crew and visits a hospital only for Snow to have soldiers blow it up. I should be sad and depressed to see this hall ending but the only thing that depresses me is how horribly executed it is with no emotion
I'm not even going to get started on the fact that this really did not need to be two movies because if anything, I do think there was a way splitting it into two movies would have improved the story as a whole. The book's problem is that the first half is too slow and the second half is too rushed. They could easily trim an hour of fat and being some stuff in from the second half to make the film more intense. The book lacks emotional connection the same way this movie does, and so there's so many opportunities. Problem is, it's too much like The Deathly Hallows, where part 1 was filled with padding to the point where the whole thing could easily have been one movie
So what did I like? Well, I loved the storming and bombing of the hydroelectric dam. I loved the ca few flying in to rescue the hostages. I loved the final conversation between Snow and Peeta. I loved the bombing of the forest. I loved the emergency sheltering. These are enough to warrant the 5/10 I gave it, because those scenes were truly gripping and engaging. Had these kinds of intense scenes been in the movie more, maybe, just maybe I'd have walked out with some level of anticipation for the next part
Otherwise there's really no reason to spend hard earned cash to watch a two hour trailer for the actual payoff. The whole thing feels like a big, two hour long trailer. It's clear they only did this to make the audience want to wait for the next part. Oh, I'll be dressing up in my district outfit and going to see the next movie for sure but not because I'm excited to because at this point I feel obligated to do so