I joke there, obviously, though the truth is that Mockingjay may have justified the fracturing of its final book into two films better than many recent franchises to have done the same. The reason is because of a not-entirely-effective choice made by author Suzanne Collins in writing her original books. Her vision (whether she had it from the outset, or expanded into it after the success of her first book) was to tell the story of a revolution against a tyrannical power. But book one really only set the stage of that world, and book two was in large part just a redux of the first one thanks to the decision to put Katniss back in the arena. That really left just one book, Mockingjay, in which to actually depict her revolution. One book in which to make us care about several new characters when we were quite fixated on those who'd been there from the beginning. One book in which to try to make Gale seem like an equally viable love interest in the Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle.
There may be down sides to the film franchise's decision to break the final book in half. But the up side is that the movies get twice as much time and space to address all those issues above. On film, we'll get just as much of the revolution as we did of the arena, two movies to get to know the new characters, and with this Part 1, an entire movie Katniss spends with Gale rather than Peeta. I suspect once the saga is complete, this will all be for the better.
But by dividing one book's worth of action in two, Mockingjay Part 1 plays out at a considerably slower pace than either of the two films that preceded it. There are moments when this works wonderfully, particularly in a tense stealth infiltration sequence near the end of the movie. But there are also times when it plays a bit dry, like returning to the ruined District 12 for the second time in the same movie, or during a go-nowhere hunting sequence between Gale and Katniss. Unsurprisingly, parts of the movie feel padded, just to balloon a single three-hour film into two two-hour films.
The biggest edge Mockingjay Part 1 has over the many other "children in an apocalyptic future" films continues to be its solid acting. Jennifer Lawrence is an Oscar winner, remember, and she gives just as honest a performance in a blockbuster like this as she does in the more conventionally "Award worthy" material that earned her the prize. She sells you on the more intimate costs of this larger-than-life struggle, raising the audience investment in the whole thing.
Philip Seymour Hoffman gives one of his final performances as Plutarch Heavensbee, and is second only to Lawrence in providing a character who seems somehow grounded in reality, even though the story seems quite short on realism. Julianne Moore is a solid new addition to the cast. Her character, rebel President Coin, made no impression on me in the book, but Moore creates a surprisingly nuanced persona for the film. Most interestingly, she doesn't come off as a truly pure and charismatic leader, but as possibly the lesser of two evils. That other evil, President Snow, continues to be portrayed with wonderful slickness by Donald Sutherland. Now there's a character with no nuance at all, but Sutherland makes you believe that a person really could take sick delight in just being bad.
It is a bit disappointing, though, that a number of actors who were great in the previous two films have so little to do here. Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks have only a couple of scenes each in this film, and both leave you wanting more. And while I never had pegged Josh Hutcherson as one of the better performers in these movies, I found myself missing him a bit as Liam Hemsworth -- who generally seemed less authentic -- took a larger role in the story.
All told, I'd say Mockingjay Part 1 was a small step up again in quality from Catching Fire. Still, like the book it came from, it fell quite a bit short of The Hunger Games itself. I'd put this latest film right on the edge between a B+ and a B. Today, I'm inclined to nudge it upward; perhaps on another day, I'd be a bit less charitable.
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