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How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 11 November 2014
This article is a review of THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 1. |
"I wish she was dead. I wish they were all dead. And we were too," Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) to Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence)
Post-traumatic stress suffered by teenagers. Each instalment in the franchise is reaching for bolder sophistication. Opening and closing images, depicting the mentally battered, bookend a surprisingly bleak blockbuster. Katniss cowering in a service room, pleading for five more minutes to get her mind right, overwhelmed by survivors’ guilt, is how the audience is greeted.
Post-traumatic stress suffered by teenagers. Each instalment in the franchise is reaching for bolder sophistication. Opening and closing images, depicting the mentally battered, bookend a surprisingly bleak blockbuster. Katniss cowering in a service room, pleading for five more minutes to get her mind right, overwhelmed by survivors’ guilt, is how the audience is greeted.
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Screaming, as tough love restraining and sedating is administered, is not how the mainstream typically kicks off its latest spectacle. Blowing the smithereens out of something is what we've come to expect, though there is a ceiling before audience ennui takes hold. Going intimate, internal and dark, now that's a refreshing option. Action sequences are sparse in comparison to its predecessors. Don't worry, we are not in HARRY POTTER DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 treading water tedium; THE HUNGER GAMES has gone BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: The nature of war and media is MOCKINGJAY's modus operandi - how do you fan the flames without putting out the fire of a rebellion taking on tyranny?
“If we burn, you burn with us!” Katniss
Symbols litter the runtime. Both sides of Panem's burgeoning conflict attempt to win hearts and minds. Conscience-less President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) has corralled an increasingly emaciated Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson - channelling his inner method acting Christrian Bale à la THE MACHINIST, or clever visual effects?) to be his mouthpiece. The Mockingjay image, whistle, and Katniss herself are the rebels' insignias. New cast addition includes hipster-hairtrimmed/tattooed director Cressida (Natalie Dormer), there to capture our heroine being heroic for the masses to rally behind. (A female action director - real world commissioners take note!)
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District 12 has been laid waste and Katniss is holed up in underground military District 13. Kid-less after an epidemic, this district is hardened, with Julianne Moore (as opposition President Alma Coin) lending icy weight, nicely rubbing against the intelligent gravitas of Philip Seymour Hoffman. That Jeffrey Wright's quartermaster science boffin Beetee is now in a wheelchair, since CATCHING FIRE, and never commented upon out loud, demonstrates a set of filmmakers not looking down on their viewers.
Fans of Joss Whedon’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER will see similarities – science fiction/fantasy used as a metaphor for growing up. Might also MOCKINGJAY be an explanation to the young as to how propaganda can work, dressed as a dystopian action-adventure? If so, might a cheekily subversive Hollywood movie now be a thing?
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We have selected movies below that we think will be of interest to you based on this review.
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