The third and penultimate installment of The Hunger Games franchise feels more like an over-long set-up for a better, more exciting movie. Maybe that’s what we’ll get next year, when the final film, Mockingjay, Part 2, is released.
In a change of pace, Mockingjay, Part 1 contains no brutal kid-on-kid killing, but rather sees Katniss and her main supporters—the handsome Gale, her sister, Haymitch, and even Effie Trinket, who provides the story’s sole comic relief—in the bleak, underground District 13. Suffering some serious PTSD from her time in the games, Katniss reluctantly becomes the Mockingjay, the propaganda symbol for the rising rebellion against the oppressive Capitol, which is led by a steely President Coin (Julianne Moore).
It’s certainly the darkest film of the franchise yet, but even with all of Katniss’ displays of rage, horror and sadness as she discovers the extent to which the Capitol is willing to go to destroy the districts, it just falls flat. Any review of this film, however, would be remiss without mentioning the appearance of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch, the past games-maker. As always, he steals every scene.
Should You See It? Only if you’re a diehard fan. —S.Z.
Viewed at Plaza Frontenac Cinema
