The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The first half of the last episode of The Hunger Games offers nothing but constant talking, preparation for the revolution, gathering courage and calm before the storm. Meanwhile, we will have to wait a year for a proper civil war and action before the second half premieres. Actually, it's more of a prequel. From a technical perspective, the film is not badly shot, the actors are very good and the dialogues are quite fine, but it is desperately boring and lacks action. Most of the time, you just wait for something to finally start happening, but you won't get see it, because the creators are saving it for the next film. In addition, the whole thing looks much cheaper than the previous two films. If nothing else, in the previous Hunger Games you could at least enjoy the grandeur of the gaming arena, the digital tricks, or at least the extravagant color stylization of the capital and its inhabitants. This is not the case with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, as most of the story takes place in an underground bunker or in ruins, so the film is not only much more intimate, but also not very visually attractive. For the average viewer, or one who hasn’t seen the previous episodes, this is a waste of time. For fans of the series, the film only serves as a moving illustration of events that they already know from the book. And, of course, it doesn't make sense to tell them that the new Hunger Games is not worth it... (19/11/2014)

That I'm giving it the same rating as, say, Inherent Vice deserves a bit of a defense. Because the third Hunger Games is actually incredibly lame in many individual aspects, by which I mostly mean the protagonist, who casts an indifferent cumshot debutante face in all directions as the planets revolve around her; though she knows she’s hanging on the precipice of a revolution, she still floats around like a noodle in a lunch pail, asserting herself solely through a chafing love triangle with two sets of bangs, airing out her tear ducts so many times throughout the film that I'm not surprised how red her eyes got by the end. The tactics of the reborn rebels' uprising are also worth a mention since they can't come up with anything better than frontal assaults, in which half of them must inevitably die, and the fact that they don't is only because the devil's minions here are a bit reminiscent of stormtroopers. Of course, in the context of young adult films based on books where the last installment is split into two parts, this is far, far behind all its predecessors in terms of some central concept and execution. The strongest aspect of the mediocre previous installment was its exploitation of the media space to ignite a revolutionary spark; Mockingjay works almost exclusively in the field of media warfare and manipulation, which suddenly makes the oppressed poor not collective socialist heroes rising up, but just another manipulated mob, and the tyrannical despotism of the Capitol is now faced down by the other practically tyrannical despotism of District 13. The good news is that the film uses the same means on the viewer as well, with many scenes being accompanied by a leading monologue that gives these scenes a different point of view. Likewise, the cheerful song "Katniss", which becomes the anthem of the revolution, does so because it is officially promoted by the Resistance's recruitment videos and not because it spreads among the people. It's that much better when crucial revolutionary scenes work for the viewer primarily because this song accompanies them. Otherwise, Francis Lawrence does the best he can, and a large part of the this film’s refusal to die is thanks to his abilities. (10/03/2015)

It's not smarter than the previous parts in the series, just more talkative. It's not even fun. The story has disappeared, and the development of Katniss and Peeta's relationship, which held the first and second parts above water, is sidelined. I've never been a fan of Panem's world, and I really don't have anything to lean on here. Overall impression: 25%. It seems to me that the whole series mentally corresponds to the world of 12-16-year-old teenagers, and it is questionable whether this stretched filler can satisfy them... (31/01/2022)

Worse than the second film. Verbose, with very little action, and unnecessarily political. And there was all this fuss about it, even the new song by Lorde turned out to be unnecessary. It is incomprehensible how Jennifer Lawrence, compared to the excellently coherent and well-paced second installment, stumbled so badly and made a typically arrogant and tearful Hollywood shlock that lacks all the ingredients that made the second film a better one. A leap back to mediocrity with one single inventive moment – the chimney falling on the building. (07/12/2014)

The first Mockingjay is one of the most typical blockbusters in the history of Hollywood. The second most commercially successful film in the Unites States in 2014 and the fifth in the given year in worldwide box-office revenues is completely devoid of money shots, epic scenes and bombastic action sequences. Its two-hour runtime predominantly comprises dialogue scenes, as most of the film takes place in an underground bunker and all of the characters wear baggy coveralls. Here the filmmakers can afford to do what would be commercial suicide anywhere else thanks to the fact that this is a feature-length exposition for the climax, which will come in the second film. The knowledge that, thanks to its title, the film will automatically be a hit regardless of what happens in it gave rise to the film saga’s crucial episode. Instead of a seasonal spectacle, we have here a film that appeals exclusively to adolescent audiences, but instead of the formulaicness and superficiality that is associated with this target group on the part of overly clever old people and pragmatic producers, it relates a narrative from an Orwellian grey world that uncovers deceit and media manipulation, showing the heroine fumbling her way between her own interests and the intentions of others, while offering no resolution of the conflicts that have arisen. (26/06/2016)