Teen soap fan-fic masquerading as deep futurist commentary

Rating: 4/10 (14 March 2015)

I was intrigued by the first film. Sure I eventually discovered that the teen romance took center stage despite building this up as some dystopian future epic (or a fantasy world, I couldn't figure out which). The politics/social commentary were a bit simplistic but perhaps they were saving the real meat for part 2. It still whetted your appetite for learning more about this world.
Catching Fire started out decently enough with some passable allusion to the lifestyle of celebrity/political couples and introduced an interesting concept of discontentment within the seemingly loyalist Capitol City elite. However this is where the series started to irritate me with its endlessly generic love triangle, elementary school level black & white politics/social commentary, and downright absurd leaps in suspension of belief.
This latest entry only furthers that downfall into inane tripe. In addition to following we already had to stomach -Sat.Morning cartoon evil empire vs plucky youngster and the most powerful force of all: Hope! If "hope" is so dangerous, why have the games at all? Why not just make them entirely broken slaves? -Twilight style soap opera level romance where the female lead spends most of the movie trying to figure out her one true love. More than trying to survive or topple Dr Doom's regime it seems.
-Villainy for the sake of villainy. Why kill off thousands of your slave labor when human beings are supposedly in very short supply. Also, why obliterate your expensive infrastructure when your have lethal poison gas at your disposal? -Technological leaps of faith: We have mind-blowingly stunning futuristic technology (much devoted solely to gladiatorial combat) and can genetically modify bees with hallucinogenic drugs, but can't genetically modify more food for the masses? Those slave work horses are less likely to rebel if you give them a fresh supply of oats.
-Breaking suspension of disbelief. In addition to the questionable tech, we get weird stuff like skin ravaging gas (entirely cured by water) and being blown yards away by electricity while not so much as leaving a visible scar. That and the nagging question: If Katniss is such a threat, why does Snow not just up and kill her? You have no problem killing scores simply for making a hand gesture.
Mockingjay adds the following -It's the third movie and we just now discover another entire rebel army and military HQ has been conveniently waiting behind the scenes this whole time. Apparently for 75 years! -Am I suppose to believe no one in that entire rebel army was capable of sowing the seeds of rebellion or inspiring the slaves to rebel. For an entire 75 years?? -Seriously, why were these guys never mentioned in prior films? -If they've been underground that long, how can they be expected to cope with the sun on the surface? -If the Capitol had the power the brainwash people with drugs, why not brainwash Katniss into a timebomb to discredit her instead of pitting her into another contest? -Yes the Capitol is evil and does evil things. Surprisingly, this is news to people 75 years into its history. And apparently suppose to be surprising to the audience who sat through the past two movies -Snow saw Katniss and the rebels walking among the ruins, yet chooses to bomb the hospital instead of bombing the rebels? Why not both? -I just witnessed a single arrow fired from a bow taking down a futuristic bomber aircraft in a massive explosion. Why did they rebels bother firing hundreds of rounds from an anti-aircraft rifle when a single arrow fired from a bow was more effective? -How many times did Katniss break down over a setback and shout NO!, NO!, NOOO!!! in an agonized expression. How long before she's aware of the dystopian primal world she was born into.
-Peeta appears on TV repeatedly in worse and worse condition over the film. It's suppose to be chilling to notice how ragged he looks in each successive appearance, but the movie doesn't think we have eyes and requires Katniss to spell out every detail that appears on screen before even the audience gets a good look: "My god, he looks awful!" "What have they been doing to him!" "Look at him, how terrible!" repeatedly almost 20 times. Similar things happen throughout the movie.
-They have the ability to hack into the entire capital without consequence....why was this never attempted in earlier films? And why did they need Katniss in particular if they could pre-fab their own propaganda? -For someone who is suppose to be a standard-bearer for the free world, Katniss doesn't spend much of the movie thinking about it. Most is spent on worrying about Peeta, that is between the time where she isn't actively pursuing Gale. Subtle commentary perhaps, but I doubt it.
The movie has a few good ideas, namely that the rebels may not be as noble as they appear and questioning the downright terrorist acts the rebels resort to to win. The first 5 minutes give a false sense of a dystopian visual feast before descending quickly into banality. Also, you can't go wrong with a boyfriend timebomb. It's interesting and cheesy enough to at least grab your attention.
I honestly wouldn't be so hard on this if it wasn't trying so earnestly to be taken as a serious look at a dystopian future and a serious romance-drama despite being, at its core, teenage fluff.
I really should just consider the whole series a lost cause. I seriously doubt it will get much better. But there's one more left. I think I'll manage that just to witness the resulting "thud" the this series (or, if a miracle occurs, be pleasantly surprised).