I have a problem with Mockingjay Part I. I have a pretty significant problem with it that may or not impede my ability to judge this film unbiased. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the first movie franchise in history to split its final book into two films. They didn't do it out of greed, but the book was simply just too long and too epic to contain into one movie. That being said, it actually could've been one five hour movie, but once you hear that you'll be spending five hours of your day inside of a movie theater, most patrons are turned off and the film loses money. So, it was still monetarily beneficial, but that wasn't the only actual reason it did it. It split the movies into two in order to fit as much source material onto the screen as they could in order to stay true to the book and please the fans. It was a lovely gesture that has turned into something awful. While Harry Potter 7 was almost necessary because of it's epicness, detail, and length... the same could not be said for Twilight. Twilight went and took it upon itself to consider it in the same league as Harry Potter and decided it was too epic to make the last one in just one movie. Wrong. This is where the trend of splitting up the last movie started to unravel into something festeringly greedy. Shit, go read The Hobbit. It's not that long of a book! Yet, we're on the THIRD MOVIE. Yes, movie fans, Hollywood has greedily, and successfully turned a 276 page book into three two and a half hour movies. So, this is the problem I have with Mockingjay. It's a clearly incredibly greedy film in that it could've been told as one film and been fine... and it's obvious.
So, what about the story? A lot of times I like to read the book before the movie or vice versa depending on the film. I, indeed, read the first Hunger Games book before seeing the movie, but I then became one of those snooty little boners who was all pissy because they left shit out and didn't go into detail in other shit. I'm the guy defending the Harry Potter movies because they only inserted what was necessary to the plot. Sure, a lot of sub-plots were missed out on, but none of the important stuff. They put in literally as much as they could. But, I'm sitting there during the first one nitpicking every little thing they changed or got wrong or that was just different in my own head and I enjoyed it less than I probably should've. So, I decided not to read the second book before the movie, just to see how it compared. The second one was great. Even better than the first one. I heard a couple of boners behind me talking about how it was missing all these things from the book and there I was smiling, blissfully ignorant. So, I implored the same judgement with Mockingjay, decided to skip the book until after. Maybe this was a mistake.
Katniss has been rescued from the games and sent to District 13 (a previously assumed destroyed district with no survivors left). They live underground in a sort-of military compound with the rebels ready to strike a hard hitting rebellion against The Capitol. Down there is Plutarch Heavensbee (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who, thankfully, turned out to be a good guy. He is working with the President of District 13 (Julianne Moore) on convincing Katniss to be the face of the rebellion and make propaganda films in order to get the other districts behind her and rebel in order to have a chance at winning the war. Of course while she is the face of the rebellion, Peeta is now the face of The Capitol telling the rebels to cease attack or they will all die. And that's pretty much the movie. Katniss goes out, makes these films, the Capitol retaliates, then the rebels retaliate, then The Captiol and so on and so forth. It builds up to a full-scale rebellion that doesn't actually happen and we're going to have to wait another year in order to see.
The movie is enjoyable. It's actually pretty clever how they managed to take what appears to be about an hour's worth of material and double it in length. But, it's easy to see behind that Katnilabra. Jennifer Lawrence, of course, is great again. She's actually less whiny in this film than she's been in the previous two, which is nice. When she gets all screechy and whiny, it tends to turn me off to her as an actress. But, since American Hustle, she's matured a lot as an actress and it shows here. Sadly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is incredible. As always. He's always, to me, been one of the most watchable actors in Hollywood. It was hard to watch him in this, smirking the entire time, and thinking about how this is one of the last times I'll ever get to be amazed for the first time by one of his performances. Liam Hemsworth as Gale. Whewwww. What can I say about Gale? Well, I haven't read the final book yet (you better damn well believe I'm not waiting a year to find out what happens in this bitch, I'm reading it NOW!), however, I do have one firm belief about Gale-- this fool needs to DIE. Now. Seriously couldn't be more of an annoying character. I love Katniss. Oh good she loves me. Oh, she loves Peeta. Oh she's pretending I'm still in my sad face. Oh now she really loves Peeta. Real sad face. Now she loves me but only because I'm hurting. Katniss has a hurting fetish. Sad face. I'm sad face all day now.... I hate Gale. I don't know if it's the writing of the character or the acting by the Hemsworth, but I can not stand Gale and am anxiously awaiting his demise. Don't let me down!
While I didn't hate the movie (in fact, it REALLY made me want to watch the second one and now read the whole book), I hate the fact that they split it into two movies simply for the money. Artistic integrity was clearly thrown out the window in lieu of profit. That's fine. Hollywood is a business, but when it interferes with the quality of a story, I feel like that's stepping all over what movies were initially intended for in the first place. The whole movie could've been two and a half to three hours long and people would've still lined up for it. Hell, look at the last Transformers movie. Until this film, it was the highest grossing film of 2014. Michael Bay don't give no shits about movie length, he'll do what he wants and make billions. But, the collective narrative time that Mockingjay Part I really has is about an hour. I know the rebellion is going to be massive in scale, but make it two hours, slap the first hour to it and have one epically amazing final movie that people are going to remember forever. Truly, I enjoyed Part one, but it's never going to be anyone's favorite. It's never going to stand out as the Empire Strikes Back of The Hunger Games series. It's a middle movie that does a lot of middle things in order to get to the end, which is what we're all waiting for anyway.
It's necessary to see, and it's pretty enjoyable. You're just going to be able to see exactly what was stretched in order to make 60 minutes into 123.
B
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