The Complete Series: The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One (2014)

Hello all,

So in our last entry into the complete series of the Hunger Games Movie before the release of the new one, I tackle last year’s entry Mockingjay Part One. So let’s not waste anytime shall we? Will the penultimate entry into the series hold up? Let’s find out.

Plot Summary - After the events of Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself in the once thought destroyed District 13, where she finds herself thrust into the front of the new revolution to overthrow the capitol and establish a new government.

Pros - Yet again I mention the fact the cast is once again awesome, having all hit their strides and now fully diving into their characters. Newcomers also do a good job, especially Julianne Moore as the president of the revolution. The look and feel of the film is solid, especially the burnt out District 12 and the war ravaged 8. They also manage to have some cool action scenes thrown into the mix as well, and some interesting mixes of things going on. I will honestly say the ending, roughly the last 40 minutes or so, of this film might strangely enough be my favourite scene just for the intensity and like I said already the interesting mix of things going on in the scene.

Cons - There’s a quite a few scenes of them trying to get Katniss to film propaganda pieces, and while they’re an interesting idea, feel really out of place until the end of the movie and sort of take you out of the film quite a bit. There’s also quite a few padding scenes in there, mostly because I suspect with part one being the shortest film that they wanted to avoid having it be under 2 hours in length.

Final Score - 8/10

I will say, it’s a strong 8. Until that scene I was sitting at a 7, but I bring it up to 8 because while Catching Fire was good and solid throughout, Mockingjay was up and down until that ending scene.

So, at long last, I can confirm that I will be indeed seeing a new film Thursday night, and that film will be……..The Night Before. Yeah Mockingjay was pretty full seating wise for the advance shows so it might be a few days for that one. I will say though, I’m now eager to see it so expect it soon.

Until then, I’ll see you folks at the movies.