Directed by:
Francis LawrenceCinematography:
Jo WillemsComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stanley Tucci (more)VOD (4)
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The worldwide phenomenon of The Hunger Games continues to set the world on fire with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, which finds Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) in District 13 after she literally shatters the games forever. Under the leadership of President Coin (Julianne Moore) and the advice of her trusted friends, Katniss spreads her wings as she fights to save Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and a nation moved by her courage. (Lionsgate US)
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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.
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“Order shall be restored.” The next to last instalment of The Hunger Games is perhaps not the most elegant example of Hollywood storytelling – in the end, the whole film is an unfulfilled promise of something tremendous – but in terms of media self-reflection, it offers enough impetus to keep you thinking for many days after seeing it. Haunted by nightmares, Katniss gains inner peace not by finding a kindred spirit and actively taking control of the situation, but by accepting the media role that has been created for her. Using dresses, computer effects and fighting words, she transforms into an effective tool of revolution, a player in an artificially constructed reality, which she herself gradually stops perceiving as something alien, separate from the real world. She gradually accepts her role and the vocabulary of her creators and adapts her behaviour to the (omni)present camera and the interests of the revolution (“Don't shoot here. I can't help them”). Her position as a mere symbolic object is clear from the situations in which she passively finds herself and from the way the other characters relate to her (even in her presence, they speak of her in the third person and are primarily concerned with making her look good in promotional videos). Playing on emotions, the narrative is tailored to her spontaneous decisions, essentially making it impossible for her to exit the story. What she doesn’t realise is that her story mirrors that of Peeta, that she herself has become a cat dully chasing the light (perhaps a needlessly conspicuous metaphor, but also a quite clear indication that it is a mistake to approach the film as a standard genre flick). The making of the rebel and the selling of the revolution happens in parallel on two levels (in-text and outside of the text) and it’s as if the film gives us a look behind the scenes of its own creation. After a gripping action scene in an otherwise unusually unspectacular, slow and disturbingly quiet film, the same shots of the attack on the rebel hospital are repositioned in the context of a propagandistic “weekly” whose purpose is to manipulate the masses, just as we were manipulated (captivated by the spectacle) a moment before. The camera “journalistically” follows Katniss even in scenes where she is not filmed in the diegetic space. The blending of shooting styles leads to the further blurring of the line between propaganda for the people of Panem and for us. We can thus see the film’s ending, warning against the authentic with the artificially produced television broadcast intended to cover up what is happening in reality in the meantime, as the ultimate act of insincerity perpetrated by an industry built on a similar distortion of reality, or accept it as an ingenious rebellion carried out within the confines of a major-studio Hollywood narrative. However, the filmmakers could not have taken the liberty of launching a rebellion if it didn’t involve an adaptation of a bestseller capitalising on the demand for stories of defiance against the old order and whose multimillion-dollar box-office receipts are guaranteed in advance. 80%
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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.
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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...
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I was going into the third Hunger Games movie with respect. I might have even been a little bit afraid. The first one had a premise that was really enjoyable. The second one had a combination of an arena fighting and politics, which enthused me far less, and after watching it, it was clear that the third one would be pure war and politics, which is something I was afraid of. But in the end, it wasn’t that bad. There was politics, but it was bearable. An array of amazing action scenes often came to the rescue, as well as the actors who obviously enjoyed it immensely. Especially Moore and Hoffman whose roles I’ll never forget. I must even admit that even though this movie had a lot of flaws, I’m excited to see the final instalment.
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