The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part One - Film Review (NO SPOILERS)
November 26, 2014
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Sam Claflin, Natalie Dormer
Book: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Okay, so I’m going to admit to this; I haven’t seen ‘Catching Fire’, but I have read the books so I didn’t feel too out of whack when I went to see this film. I understood what had happened and didn’t feel like I had missed a large chunk of the storyline by not seeing the previous movie.
This film is definitely a stepping stone for part 2, when all the action
happens. While watchable I found some of the scenes a little, well, boring with
a little too much dialogue used as fillers between the action scenes. Don’t get
me wrong, when the action scenes did happen they were visually stunning and
stuck relatively close to the book. But they were few and far between in the
film, choosing instead to focus of the planning and hijacking of the Capital’s
system instead of the fight for freedom itself.
However, having said that… this film showed the brutality of war and
showed Katniss’ motivation to become the face of the revolution so the running
time wasn’t filled completely with meaningless dialogue and boring subplots. But
I think that some of the more uninteresting scenes could have been filled with
more action, especially since this film is marketed as being an action film!
Overall I am going to score this a 7/10 because the visual effects were
stunning and you could really empathise with Katniss’ character throughout the film.
Fun Fact: The phrase 'Mockingjay' is said around 20 times throughout the whole movie! :)
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