The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

[GuardiaStar]

This movie was one hell of a emotional roller coaster ride..

What comes to mind is a combination of the bravado from Fury, and the stance of unity from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

While I know the claim about a lack of action, in a way itself it makes up with glued to your edge scenes and dialogue. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss nailed and made this entire movie. She should be nominated for an Oscar imo.

There isn't one damn weak link in this movie, in terms of actors. The people who loved Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or the ones who were captivated by Fury, could find something to love with Mockingjay. The Hunger Games has changed for me in a lot of ways, excuse my language but a big mindfuck. I've been emotionally compromised. It brings you into Katniss's world and you see the true pain that lies within her, you can feel it and it's almost transparent while there are little minor slight bits of comedy sort of a black comedy feel but well done as maybe a form of levity (the audience laughed at some scenes meant to be humorous) but overall it's consistent with it's tone, it doesn't become a mess of a film. The way you were brought in they leave you there almost the same way but by the end you're caught in the line, and you'll be left with something even more especially if you came in with little to no expectations. My anticipation was killing me in the waiting hours, but walking in I didn't try to expect too much but be overjoyed at the fact I had gotten to see it. My mind is a mess of things however, this will definitely require a second viewing. My heart was about to jump and rip out of my chest, I've never had myself in this kind of state before.

The Hanging Tree is The Hunger Games's new anthem. It broke away from their previous mold, and it just might surprise you. In terms of build-up, it was executed perfectly. To be honest, I didn't feel the scenes dragged on too long at all. I think there was always something happening to keep the story running, but paced out where there wasn't too much at once.

It's bold, it has a lot of heart in many ways than one and it is truly grim. It takes your mind to an incredible new place. You learn to grow to care more intimately about the rebellion, the upcoming war. It's also very emotionally draining. Shit, I'm surprised by how impactful this movie is. This is the Hunger Games movie you've been waiting for.

I give this an A

[K1stpierre]

My thought on MJ Part 1! I put them on YouTube (because I was NOT going to type up 20 minutes worth of words and time)

I split it up into two parts. The first part is my reaction if you waked in as a non-reader and just read the books. The second part if you did read the books.

Sorry, but when I split it it cut off part of the video for part 2, but you only missed like 20 seconds. Im just saying how much I loved the first scene of the movie.

Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x4L74ljeaaQ

Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MH7j8erUkW4

[DAJK]

This isn't really going to be a structured review, as I'm just going to be throwing my thoughts on the movie (spoilers included) into this post.

So this kind of reminded me of DH1 (for obvious reasons). While I'm glad the arc of the overall story of the Hunger Games was not interrupted, I thought this movie had some problems with exposition, that it didn't devote enough time to developing the characters any further than CF. My problem with the MockingJay book is that I think it is a 600 page story compressed into 350 pages; and skips over many many important plot points and thematic ideas.

So on that front, I'm glad that this story got split into 2 movies. Deathly Hallows was able to do it because it was such a long book with so much story to tell. MockingJay succeeded in my opinion because splitting the book into two movies enabled the story and characters and themes to be explored further, and the movie excelled on that front.

I didn't have many pacing problems in the movie, especially during the second half. The first half however presented some of the problems the book did (to a lesser extent; as I believe the movie improved on these problems, but the problems are still present); such as having the story (the book and the movie) be a narrative of scenes stitched together very loosely with plot devices. There wasn't much transition, and honesty, the story kept jumping from one scene to the next to the next to the next without any of this underlying thread that I wasn't fully engaged in the movie for the first little while. Usually, when I see a good movie that sticks with me, I can usually close my eyes after seeing it and visualize most of the scenes in my head. With MockingJay however, I don't remember many of the specific moments as a result of not being fully engaged in the film (there are obviously exceptions to this).

This is where I'm going to get into spoilers. So the scene for example where Katniss and Gale shoot down the hovercraft with the arrows. That scene was great, it stuck with me (be it I was a tad annoyed by the shaky cam). And it stuck with me BECAUSE the movie explained the "why" of why they were there. It wasn't some scene that just "happened". As the film progressed, the problem of narrative pacing and transition ceased, and I became engrossed in what is overall a pretty great movie.

As I said before, I'm actually pleased that this book was split into two movies. Many scenes in the book that were merely glossed over (SPOILER: The rescue of the tributes from the Capitol) and told in a very passive manor. The movie on the other hand, donated the time to go deeper into this part of the story, which I don't think it would have been able to do had it been condensed into one film. We actually saw Gale and Boggs in the Capitol, and we knew what was going on.

And the ending; I HAVE to mention that. When the scene happened when (spoiler) Peeta choked Katniss when she first sees him, (first of all I have to say that that scene was awesome! It was brutal, and horrific, instead of just being passive) and Peeta was knocked out and the screen cut to black for about 6 whole seconds, I had thought that was going to be the end of the movie. So did everyone else in the theatre I presume, and there was suddenly an uproar of murmurs and discussions (one couple even stood up ready to leave but say back down when they realized that this wasn't the ending). I myself expected to see "Directed by: Francis Lawrence" appear on the screen. I am happy the movie continued for those extra ten minutes however; because while I love a good cliffhanger, you can't really end your movie THERE in my opinion. There's no closure WHATSOEVER and I would have pitied anyone who hasn't read the book and has to wait a year to see what happens

The actual ending I felt was as good a transition as any from part 1 and part 2 (we have our tributes, NOW it's time we take down the Capitol) as any. It alluded to Part 2, while doing its best to feel like the end of a story (even though I don't think it succeeded 100% in telling a COMPLETE story), the movie did the best it could to end Part 1, and the book doesn't really provide much of an exit point.

I don't have to touch on the acting or the effects, because everyone knows that I'm going to say positive things. Also, while this is technically "a review" I guess I have to score this baby.

B

(7.5/10) maybe an (8/10)

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

My thought on MJ Part 1! I put them on YouTube (because I was NOT going to type up 20 minutes worth of words and time)

I split it up into two parts. The first part is my reaction if you waked in as a non-reader and just read the books. The second part if you did read the books.

Sorry, but when I split it it cut off part of the video for part 2, but you only missed like 20 seconds. Im just saying how much I loved the first scene of the movie.

Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x4L74ljeaaQ

Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MH7j8erUkW4

Even the reviews have to be split into two parts for this movie...  

I'll check this out after I've seen the film (want to avoid spoilers)

 

[Michael Gary Scott]

I really liked it.

5/5

[GuardiaStar]

I'm really glad they teased the end when spoiler*

Peeta strangled Katniss because I was anticipating it ending there, I was relieved when it went on for ten more minutes leaving it off on a very impactful ending.

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

I just got back from seeing this; these are my (unorganized) thoughts.

First, a disclaimer: I've only read the first half of the first book, so I went into this film not knowing what to expect.

I ended up really enjoying it. For starters, I have to give a lot of credit to Jennifer Lawrence. She's always been good in this series, but this time, she gets to play a more emotional, fragile, and worn-down Katniss. She knocks it out of the park. I'm not a big fan of the Katniss character (I find her to be thinly written) and while I like the revolution storyline, it feels a little conventional. So really, I always need something extra to make these films work, and in this film, that something extra was JLaw's performance. She was amazing in this, and really elevated Katniss from a weak character to a sympathetic one.

With that being said, there were a few times where the story let her acting down. She still acted well in these moments, but you could tell that she was trying to make something out of nothing. I am speaking specifically about the film's love triangle. I don't hate Gale or Peeta's characters (I especially liked how the film conveyed Peeta's trauma from the games). However, I just don't feel anything for the love story between these three characters. Honestly, I view these two male leads as friends to Katniss more than I view them as romantic partners. Because of that, all of the love stuff got really insufferable.

Nevertheless, this film works. Part of that, as I said, is because of JLaw. Part of it is also because of Francis Lawrence's directing. He finds a way to get us inside Katniss's head through some awesome POV shots. This tactic allows us to feel what Katniss is feeling; we get to empathize with her despair, anger, pain, hope, and strength, and that combined with JLaw's performance, again take a weak character and make her worth watching. Lawrence also does a strong job with the action scenes in the film. His sound mixing is tremendous (particularly because he finds a way to get some quiet moments to balance the loud moments and never overuses the score).

I also feel like this movie is strong in its thematic ideas. The Hunger Games have always felt slightly pretentious to me, but this time, the series' ambitions are mostly met by its execution. I loved how both sides were engaged in a propaganda war, and how we got to see the psychological effects of such mental warfare. I also enjoyed how the film captured the way in which slogans enforce wars (think of the dam scene).

The only complaint (along with the love triangle) that I have is we don't fully get to see the threat that the Capitol poses in the film. We see a little of it, especially early on when the guards execute the "rebels." But for the most part, the film focuses on how Katniss affects the civilians. This is fine, but I would've liked to see how Peeta's messages affected the members of Districts 2,3,4,5,6,7, and so forth. Did he have an impact? Did he get any people to stop battling? Also, I would've liked it if we could've seen the attack on District 13 from the point of the Capitol as well as the point of Katniss; we only see it from the latter's perspective, and it's a little boring.

But these flaws are small in comparison to the strengths of this film. Simply put, the film is well made, well acted, emotional, thoughtful, and entertaining. This is the most interesting franchise in Hollywood right now.

Grade:
B (I gave the first one a B, and the second one a B+).





 

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

BTW, PSH is really good in this one.

[antovolk]

If you allow me to "interrupt your regularly scheduled pile of horse manure"...kind of a follow up to my review.

Been thinking about this film past 48 hours and it has grown on me a bit. I didn't hate it, I liked it but not nearly as much as the first two and before any Nolanite-level HG fan jumps in, that's taking all the "muh universal significance themes characterisation" into account.

I’m not a fan of a LOT of fans going on about people who criticise the movie for being a drag and too slow to get through responding with “oh you don’t get and appreciate all the themes, significance, the characterisation, all you’re looking for is popcorn action yadda yadda yadda”.

Slow paced, dark and action deprived films don’t have to be boring or a slog or chore to get through.p ad I’ve seen many examples of that. MJ1 thematically is rich and compelling and I appreciated it wholeheartedly. But did surprisingly a lot of the time (60% or so) felt unnecessarily dragged and a slog. Funnily enough, it’s in the bits and scenes that were adapted without any changes from the book, aside from one or two exceptions. The bits that were changed from the book or added to the book? Those were the strongest parts of the film.

Now unfortunately the issue here is that to make the film (emphasis on the wold film) better, you’ll have to make changes to the source material that will be seen as radical, including, yes, taking away bits. The film either adds or changes, but never takes away from the source and I’m not sure that’s a good thing because it’s exactly the bits that weren’t changed from source that were weak in my opinion.

Going to the split – yes there is a feeling of incompleteness unfortunately but it’s not as bad as I thought, but it’s still there. As a standalone piece at the moment it doesn’t quite work for me, and yes making changes I talked about above would have made it better as a standalone too. After thinking about the film for past couple of days though, that lack of completeness isn’t the main reason why I’m unhappy about this split. If Francis had to make it into one 160 minute film, then he would have had to make more radical changes to the source material, and with the film we have now he clearly showed that all the changes he made are for the better, especially and at least in filmic terms. Yes those changes may have caused for a less faithful adaptation, but it would have made it better as a FILM, not only because it’d feel complete and be able to stand on its own, but also because (at least the first half because I hope MJ2 is back to CF levels of brilliance) it’d be more cinematically compelling even with the dark themes, tone, pace characterisation you name it – Francis would nail it had he been given the chance and if he didn’t want to not cause an uprising amongst the book fans.

TL;DR - Francis and Alan Edward Bell - 160 minute combined cut PLEASE

[BoxOfficeZ]

Found it quite boring. Nice atmosphere but the film just dragged on. The bland soundtrack and nothing really happening story wise was rather disappointing as well.

 

I'd skip this and wait for part 2.

 

B-

[AniNate]

It feels like the half of a story it is. It has a lot of intriguing elements but ultimately they feel unnecessarily protracted to fill out a 2 hour running time. 

[James]

Just saw this and I have quite a few things to say. Before I start, I wanna say that I know I'm not a big HG supporter, but I'll try to keep my review as unbiased as possible.

 

I actually decided to see this out of the blue. I was bored today so I re-watched the first HG the first time since I saw it in theatres. I like it less than then, but it really made me wanna watch MJ1 so I went with the flow.

My 9:30 in the evening show was around 70% full. More about audience's reaction to it later.

 

For the most part I enjoyed the movie. It has it's moments. For example, "The Hanging Tree" song scene (the chorus at the end, not Lawrence's version - I said it before: her version doesn't fit at all) + the dam scene was fantastic. Also the scenes after the destruction of the hospital. But there are MANY other moments that (like some people already said) are there just for the sakes of it or they are stretched way too much. The movie is bloated. If feels bloated and the audience felt it (I'll explain why in a sec).

 

From all the movies in the series, this looked the best. You could easily see the budget (one complaint: I would've liked to see the bombing of District 13 from the outside too).

 

Regarding the acting, I have only good things to say. Hemsworth is trying, Lawrence is good as always, Moore is great, but what truly amazed me was how incredibly good Hutcherson was. Literally every single one of his scenes was perfectly acted. They played his change really good up until that fantastic moment at the end with him completely insane.

Before I get into my audience and it's response, I just wanna say I hate critics and 90% of the time don't agree with them, but they got one thing right: despite great acting and visuals and some shivering moments, MJ1 feels like the first part, and not in the way DH1 felt for example. That is one of my least favourite Potter movies, but it still had a climax and a lot of tense scenes. MJ1 sorely lacks that. MJ1 is the aftermath of CF and that's it. The story does not move forward almost at all. You can resume the entire movie like this: Katniss decides to help the rebellion and Peeta is saved. Period. There's nothing else.

 

Which brings me to my audience's reaction, and it wasn't a good one. When the title of the movie appeared at the end, after Peeta's insanity scene, someone guy in front of my yelled: "Give us our money back." And everyone started laughing. Now, you can take that as a joke, but then, when I'm almost out of the room, I hear another guy saying: "They saw they hit the jackpot with the first two and now they keep making them. She [Katniss] did nothing the whole movie. She shot down two planes and that was all. Sorry, but that's how it was." The last phrase was directed at one of the girls in his group, probably his gf, and she replied: "No, you're right."

Now, I wanted to mention this because I find it understandable from a guy to complain about the lack of action, but my audience was 70% girls and it seems even they are not pleased. It will open under CF here I think and I seriously doubt the legs will be good with this kind of WOM and much more competition than CF had.

 

Uh, long post. In the end, as a stand-alone movie, I'd grade it B, but as part of the THG series, I'd grade it C (with CF being an A- and THG a B+). And that pretty much because it did not feel like a HG movie to me.

Edited November 22, 2014 by James

[Noctis]

Acting is terrific across the board. Lawrence and Moore are fucking amazing and command the screen. Banks is always a highlight, and Hutcherson was surprisingly good. Gale is still the most boring character ever, and Liam isn't any better. 

 

I loved the first two movies, but this one is a big step down in quality for me. There are some great scenes like the Hanging Tree, the staircase chase, and the final five minutes. But the story was just so weak, and you could feel the writers endlessly add on minutes which just added to the bloat. The propaganda just got way too much, and I was so ridiculously bored by it after the second time. Just...whatever. 

 

It should have never been split into two films. DH's split was entirely justified, this wasn't. At all.

 

B-/C+

[James]

Acting is terrific across the board. Lawrence and Moore are fucking amazing and command the screen. Banks is always a highlight, and Hutcherson was surprisingly good. Gale is still the most boring character ever, and Liam isn't any better. 

 

I loved the first two movies, but this one is a big step down in quality for me. There are some great scenes like the Hanging Tree, the staircase chase, and the final five minutes. But the story was just so weak, and you could feel the writers endlessly add on minutes which just added to the bloat. The propaganda just got way too much, and I was so ridiculously bored by it after the second time. Just...whatever. 

 

It should have never been split into two films. DH's split was entirely justified, this wasn't. At all.

 

B-/C+

I actually liked that part. Also liked it in the book. Hutcherson's scenes where the best part of the movie imo. You could see two worlds colide: the Capitol and D13. There was way too much focus on Katniss' feelings though. I know that's the book, but this is an adaptation. After a while it became boring to watch.

[Kalo]

Acting is terrific across the board. Lawrence and Moore are fucking amazing and command the screen. Banks is always a highlight, and Hutcherson was surprisingly good. Gale is still the most boring character ever, and Liam isn't any better. 

 

I loved the first two movies, but this one is a big step down in quality for me. There are some great scenes like the Hanging Tree, the staircase chase, and the final five minutes. But the story was just so weak, and you could feel the writers endlessly add on minutes which just added to the bloat. The propaganda just got way too much, and I was so ridiculously bored by it after the second time. Just...whatever. 

 

It should have never been split into two films. DH's split was entirely justified, this wasn't. At all.

 

B-/C+

Pretty much my thoughts, that and they cut almost all of Finnick's scenes. which made me dislike it even more C-

Edited November 22, 2014 by KaloVisor

[The Panda]

I saw it and I'm rather conflicted, when the film first started I was enjoying it, it had that same build up that I loved in Catching Fire. But then it just keeps moving along at that same pace, it wasn't necessarily bad at what it was doing, but it was quiet moment after quiet moment and it never truly built to anything.

Now, I understand that in context it's because Mockingjay part 1 should be build up to part two, but there should still be inner climaxes (especially since you have to wait a year to get your climax from this build). My point being is that I was hoping for something more akin to deathly Hallows part 1 (to a lesser extent) or Two Towers where you use the movie to build to your main climax (the next installment) but still have a movie that is enjoyable in its own right.

I felt like it had to try to have some intense moments but they were all very sort, limited, rather sudden, and kind of fell off a cliff in intensity. It honestly also makes sense why they didn't shoot this in IMAX because there were no real shots/scenes that felt worthy of IMAX.

All of the performances were just as strong as they were in catching fire, and they were some of the better parts of the film, I really don't want to totally bag on the film, but you really do leave the theater indifferent. The film really just ends as if Lawrence decided, "Well, we have two hours of footage cut off now!"

It'll probably be stronger in context with part 2 but the problem is we don't have part 2 and so I have to make a judgement on part 1 as a film.

I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and be generous with a C+ but it was definitely a disappointment

[AniNate]

The film really just ends as if Lawrence decided, "Well, we have two hours of footage cut off now!"

 

Could've been worse. I would've been really pissed if they had ended it five minutes earlier as I was afraid they might.

 

Filmmakers: Do NOT fade or cut to black for an extended period of time over 90 minutes into your film unless you actually plan to end it there. It's freaking annoying.

[GuardiaStar]

The night has been saved for me after finding a great pic of hijacked Peeta on tumblr. Sometimes tumblr can be a good thing..

 

About the movie, when Peeta strangled Katniss that was probably one of the more scarier scenes from the film

I kinda knew it was coming, but not like this

 

It was an incredible scene though, leading up to the end.

[GuardiaStar]

Does anyone want to talk about the movie on pm?

 

Heh, I need emotional closure. I loved this film, I really want to talk about poor peeta

[James]

The night has been saved for me after finding a great pic of hijacked Peeta on tumblr. Sometimes tumblr can be a good thing..

 

About the movie, when Peeta strangled Katniss that was probably one of the more scarier scenes from the film

I kinda knew it was coming, but not like this

 

It was an incredible scene though, leading up to the end.

I read the book a few years ago and I completely forgot about that so I really enjoyed the scene. One of the best from this movie.