The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 (12A.)
Directed by Francis Lawrence.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 120 mins
Whatever happened to Previously On? Even the second part of the Dr Who finale started with a brief recap and that was only from a week before. The first half of the last third of the Hunger Games jumps straight into it with heroine Katniss (Lawrence) stuck in a dingy but surprisingly well equipped rebel bunker where she has been brought after being rescued at the end of the previous film. A few flashbacks might have helped not just to orient those who only dimly recall events in last November's Catching Fire, but also to give spark to a film with the dullest, most expectation sapping start to a sequel since the Matrix Reloaded.
The successful Young Adult literature adaptation is the dream of any studio because they generate fanatical loyalty and are cheap as chips to make. The previous two films generated over $1.5 billion just in cinemas, transforming the fortunes of mini studio Lionsgate, and there is no reason to imagine the two part finale wont at least double that. The combined budget for the two parts of Mockingjay is $250 million, around the going rate for a single blockbuster, though you wouldn't guess it to look at it: the first thirty minutes of the movie are so murky and fuzzy looking I kept taking off my glasses and giving them a clean. (Probably this was down in part to it being screened on an Imax film that it wasn't designed for.)
Still Cheapsgate isn't letting their new found fortune turn to profligacy so I drag myself out of bed on a Sunday morning for a nine a.m. screening, presumably because they got a cheap rate on a big West End screen. Deprived of my Sunday lie-in and having had no great feeling for the other two I was all charged up to hate this but to my considerable vexation, this is the best in the series, primarily because there are no Hunger Games involved. The trite and nonsensical allegory of children being sent off to the arena to fight to the death has been replaced with a rather smart study of the inner workings of power and mass manipulation.
Of course it's possible that people will dislike it for entirely the same reason, (there's a distinct lack of action here and plenty of chat) but this is the first time that I could see why Suzanne Collin's books have a reputation as being the intellectual Twilight. Not many blockbusters take as their subject a PR campaign. Having escaped the decadent clutches of president Snow (Sutherland) Katniss now has to deal with not-to-be-trusted rebel president Alma Coin (Moore) who wants to use her as a propaganda tool. She becomes a Princess Diana/ Bodicea hybrid, comforting the sick and taking down gunships with a single exploding arrow. It is all rather subversive: Snow is an absolute tyrant but Mockinjay shows that the discipline and fury needed by the rebels to overthrow him is simply planting the seeds for another brand of authoritarianism. You never got that in Star Wars. Mockingjay isn't a great film – it's basically padding out the time until next year's big finale, but it is sharp enough. I am actually looking forward to next November's conclusion now – though I'll probably have forgotten everything that happened in this one by then.
review of Hunger Games Catching Fire
Directed by Francis Lawrence.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 120 mins
Whatever happened to Previously On? Even the second part of the Dr Who finale started with a brief recap and that was only from a week before. The first half of the last third of the Hunger Games jumps straight into it with heroine Katniss (Lawrence) stuck in a dingy but surprisingly well equipped rebel bunker where she has been brought after being rescued at the end of the previous film. A few flashbacks might have helped not just to orient those who only dimly recall events in last November's Catching Fire, but also to give spark to a film with the dullest, most expectation sapping start to a sequel since the Matrix Reloaded.
The successful Young Adult literature adaptation is the dream of any studio because they generate fanatical loyalty and are cheap as chips to make. The previous two films generated over $1.5 billion just in cinemas, transforming the fortunes of mini studio Lionsgate, and there is no reason to imagine the two part finale wont at least double that. The combined budget for the two parts of Mockingjay is $250 million, around the going rate for a single blockbuster, though you wouldn't guess it to look at it: the first thirty minutes of the movie are so murky and fuzzy looking I kept taking off my glasses and giving them a clean. (Probably this was down in part to it being screened on an Imax film that it wasn't designed for.)
Still Cheapsgate isn't letting their new found fortune turn to profligacy so I drag myself out of bed on a Sunday morning for a nine a.m. screening, presumably because they got a cheap rate on a big West End screen. Deprived of my Sunday lie-in and having had no great feeling for the other two I was all charged up to hate this but to my considerable vexation, this is the best in the series, primarily because there are no Hunger Games involved. The trite and nonsensical allegory of children being sent off to the arena to fight to the death has been replaced with a rather smart study of the inner workings of power and mass manipulation.
Of course it's possible that people will dislike it for entirely the same reason, (there's a distinct lack of action here and plenty of chat) but this is the first time that I could see why Suzanne Collin's books have a reputation as being the intellectual Twilight. Not many blockbusters take as their subject a PR campaign. Having escaped the decadent clutches of president Snow (Sutherland) Katniss now has to deal with not-to-be-trusted rebel president Alma Coin (Moore) who wants to use her as a propaganda tool. She becomes a Princess Diana/ Bodicea hybrid, comforting the sick and taking down gunships with a single exploding arrow. It is all rather subversive: Snow is an absolute tyrant but Mockinjay shows that the discipline and fury needed by the rebels to overthrow him is simply planting the seeds for another brand of authoritarianism. You never got that in Star Wars. Mockingjay isn't a great film – it's basically padding out the time until next year's big finale, but it is sharp enough. I am actually looking forward to next November's conclusion now – though I'll probably have forgotten everything that happened in this one by then.
review of Hunger Games Catching Fire
