The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 1

[TrenterPercenter]

I saw this on the weekend.  Now i'm not a massive fan of the series and I'm certainly not the target demographic but there was a few things that I admired about the original; mainly the strong female lead, the semi dark dystopia (for, as Ben Elton would "YOUNG ADAALTS!") and the consumerist machine mockery.  I say this because I was expecting to get a 3 star movie and a few brownies points from mi Julie.  All I needed to do was keep my shit together and my mouth shut for 2hrs (which isn't too bad I thought considering these kind of things).

Did I manage it?

Did I balls.

The film is terrible.  Now I know some fan girls & boys are going to say different but just like the potterphiles they often care more about identifying with the brand rather than whether movie was actually any good.  I mean the actual craft of film making, which in this film is atrocious, it's like a step back into to 80's complete with tech wiz genius, stoic general and combative police chief/leader (You're off the case Katniss Everdean!).

I read the Mark Kerrrmode review today and nearly shat my pants when he gave it 4 stars?! Have a word with yourself Mark.  It's awful, actors look clearly unable to devote any real passion/belief to their roles (Kerrrmode nearly shoots his Kerrrlode over Hoffman's performance? It's not bad because he was an excellent actor, but good? Has he seen A Most Wanted Man? Hoffman is utterly wasted and does his best with a terrible script hence why Kerrrmode has to spend a whole paragraph out of three talking about Hoffman rather than the steaming turd of film around him).

Watch out for spoilers

So firstly there is Katniss

Spoiler alert

who is now a whiny unable to do anything wreck that by end of the film your just think oh fuck off, aren't you meant to be the one everyone is relying on because your tough.  It's really bad, to point of grating the amount of crying, screaming and yelping she does throughout the film.  The film would have been better named "The Growing Pains of a Teenage Katniss"

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Spoiler alert

This brilliant potrayal of Kevin the angry teenager is typified when required to film a salutary film regarding the revolution a "propos" (fuck off), but she unable to raise her spirits enough in studio requiring her to go alfresco to get her jive on and make the shoot.  This then involves a rather vomit inducing scene where she is welcomed by the grimey civilians in a hospital before she fires an arrow into a spaceship that then crashes into said hospital burning said civilians.  This shot in the arm is the perfect antidote and she delivers a rousing speech, all she had to do was see (and be invovled in?) the murder of innocents.  Next time to save on the hospital cannon fodder her media "team" could perhaps just strangle a puppy for her off camera.

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Spoiler alert

Hey, but I can forgive that, what I can't forgive is the way plot lines are just dropped into the story without seemingly any subtly.  These aspects of continuity are terrible from a direction point as well.  For instance her town is leveled and we see one shot of horribly burnt bodies in a mass of destroyed buildings.  Next scene she is in her house which is so completely untouched that she can grab a few pickles and jams for her munch a bit later (SHE DOES THIS TWICE!!).  It's just such obvious filler, time wasting in various locations.  Then after than nonsense which could have been better spent progressing the story we get 80s tech wiz guys basically looking at the flashing "technology" screen and revealing the upcoming plot to us "I've managed to crack the code so their shields are down and we can go get them......if this code holds up that is......Jeee i really hope it does".

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The only thing that was tense was my fists.

Anyhoo I completely appreciate what the franchise is trying to do by pitching women in leading roles, its a good cause.  Just give them some fucking real characters though! everything is just too over or underdone.  The film cuts a very superficial style without the depth of character(s) (I say that about Katniss in the first one, her and the little black girl are the only human like characters in the whole franchise),which is at complete odds with it's "don't conform" message.  Perhaps this is more the fault of Francis Lawrence but between him and Collin's they seem to have succeeded in creating vision of a rich white man's nightmare of a revolution.  All the  while pointing nonchalantly and saying yeah "take that inherent oppression in the system.........or whatever"


So in summary:

An awful, awful, awful film and an insult to cinema.

[olliebean]

I liked the bit where they pointed out how wooden the muckenjay's acting was. But I thought the cat should have been in it more, given that I'd been led to believe it was going to be all about catness.

[BritishHobo]

No offence to you, but the criticism of her being a whiny teenager in this book/movie has always rankled with me, because it's a complaint that purports to criticise the film for being shallow and immature, while itself being a fairly shallow description of a character who's suffering PTSD because of the absurd shit she's been through. The point has always been that she's not a flawless superhero - she's a teenage girl who's been forced into two fights to the death before being made to act as the face of a revolution.

I did think this suffered heavily from being one half of a two-parter though. It feels totally incomplete.

[TrenterPercenter]

No offence to you, but the criticism of her being a whiny teenager in this book/movie has always rankled with me, because it's a complaint that purports to criticise the film for being shallow and immature, while itself being a fairly shallow description of a character who's suffering PTSD because of the absurd shit she's been through. The point has always been that she's not a flawless superhero - she's a teenage girl who's been forced into two fights to the death before being made to act as the face of a revolution.

I did think this suffered heavily from being one half of a two-parter though. It feels totally incomplete.

It's a fair point, I have to say I'm not aware of that this was a common critique. 

Perhaps in the book it is better explained and developed as if it is a portrayal of PTSD then we see I think one flashback (which is petty common for these types of films) of her trauma in this film, perhaps with a bit more direction this would have come through.  I also think that if we are going into the realms of mental illnesses then it needs there needs to be even more effort spent on characterisation, to make it less woody.  It's just simply not acted as if it was PTSD to my mind, and if it is meant to be then it's a pretty cardboard "cry" when something bad happens approach to displaying it.

This however does prove my point, readers of series can fill in the blanks here and say "ah PTSD" while anyone unaware of that plot line in the book will see it as over cooking the emotions, as mentioned, it was a bad film not necessarily a bad book.

EDIT: just looked at a few commentators on the books and it seems this is also a common critique of the books.