Caffeinated Clint
Like a tasty Rainbow ice-cream crammed into a slight kid’s cone, the latest installment of The Hunger Games, though tasty, makes you wish Lionsgate had ordered us up a bigger serve.
Though just as impressively-structured as the first two films in the series (based on the books by Suzanne Collins), threequel “Mockingjay – Part 1” plays like sensual foreplay without the ultimate deed. Everything just stops right at the moment it’s about to happen.
Knowing they could make a few more greenbacks for the dancer’s undies by splitting the final book in the series into two movies, the studio has sliced the thing down the middle – teasing us with a joke but no punchline. As a result, though “Mockingjay : Foreplay, No Sex” is a decent film, it’s ultimately an underwhelming one because it’s mostly a teaser for things to come. No fault of the filmmakers though, it’s a fiscally-driven decision that causes “Mockingjay” to be more “Return of the Jedi” than “Empire Strikes Back”.
Director Francis Lawrence doesn’t have as thrilling a story to work with here, as he did on the last chapter, “Catching Fire”. More a Verhoeven-esque jab at politics, than anything else, it lacks the sublime action and thrills of the previous installments – nail-gnuzzling, high-action thrills and spills set on wild battlefields. But again, that’s likely only because the real goods have been ported over into “Part 2” of this particular story.
“Catching Fire” really set the benchmark for this particular movie series though. It was tense, terrific, and told its story in such a universally-nabbing way that it was able to entice as many non-fans of the series to it as it did loyalists. It’s definitely up there with some of the better sequels of the last decade, like Chris Nolan’s “Dark Knight” and “”.
Some might also argue that the best of the story is behind the series, what with proceedings now having left the “Games” of the title. “Mockingjay” is essentially a ‘what happened after the Games’ catch-up, and that’s undoubtedly going to stir mixed reaction.
Judging it on its own merits, it’s a very solid film though. “Starship Troopers” by way of “Wag the Dog”, the futuristic political-heavy yarn definitely holds attention. With its plethora of intriguing characters (even if most are sidelined in this chapter), amazing performances (there’s really no better cast in a film series today – not as solid as this, anyway), and a production design that likely already has the academy pencilling it in for a vote, “Mockingjay” has very sturdy wings.
At the end of the last film, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) was rescued from the devastating Quarter Quell. Here, she awakens to find herself housed in a complex beneath a supposedly destroyed District 13. The inhabitants of the complex (including friend Gale Hawthorne, President Alma Coin, rebel mentor Plutarch Heavensbee, and fellow ‘Games’ teammate Finnick Odair) are part of a secret rebellion spreading throughout all of Panem –intent on taking down the sinister President Snow (Donald Sutherland).
A fully-clothed Jennifer Lawrence is again expectedly magnificent in the lead role, and effectively shows another side of Katniss Everdeen’s persona and makeup this time around. The young actress channels Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley (post-“Alien”) for a lot of the film here, meritoriously demonstrating how the games, and those she’s lost as a result of, have affected her. Now, of course, she’s being used as sort of a mascot for the government – not unlike what became of Ripley in the “Alien” series.
From the main “Hunger Games” guy corner, Liam Hemsworth has significantly much more to do here than he did in the previous installments, overshadowing the series’ male lead Josh Hutcherson whose amount of screen time in this instalment can be added up on two hands.
Of the vets, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding as a kindly rebel, with Julianne Moore, ever versatile, terrifically cast as the shades-of-grey President Coin. Woody Harrelson again steals most of his scenes as a rehabilitated drunk/victor turned mentor.
Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Geoffrey Wright, and Willow Shields also make appearances – though, for some, it’s no more than a fleeting ‘hi and bye’.
Several sequences, like a blackout-toned rescue mission to save one of the franchise’s favourites are amazingly choreographed. While not at the level of “Zero Dark Thirty”, this particular sequence serves as yet another reminder why ‘’The Hunger Games’’ is leaps and bounds ahead of most other similar-themed YA film adaptations.
