A Detailed Analysis of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1"

The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1; an Uninteresting Bridge to the Finale

Following in the footsteps of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows, the Hunger Games trilogy has taken the final book and divided into a two movie part. The first part, Mocking Jay Part One is extremely different from its previous two movies. With no actual Hunger Games in this movie, this one focuses on the revolutionary aspect and uprising of the districts against the tyrannical capitol.

Jennifer Lawrence stars in the movie as our heroine Katniss Everdeen picking up right where the last movie left off. After destroying the stadium and being rescued by District 13, Katniss has been recruited to be the face of this new revolution. District 13 is a rebel society hidden underground for years as they slowly build up the military power to take down President Snow (Donald Sutherland). At the beginning of Mocking Jay Part 1, District 13 has decided to come out of hiding and start a series of advertising campaigns made to rouse the other districts into joining the rebellion. Only one problem though, the capitol has captured Katniss’ previous sidekick Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and are using him for the same thing – to encourage the districts that the capitol is the only thing keeping them from total and complete anarchy.

The love triangle between Peeta, Katniss, and her best friend from home Gale (Liam Hemsworth) has seemingly been put on hold as Katniss’ main priority in all of this is breaking Peeta and the other tributes being held captive by the capitol free. With her new gang of allies (Jullianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Dormer) Katniss is brought to the frontlines to lead the revolution. The whole movie is a power struggle as the rebels can’t seem to catch a break. With every victory they seem to gain, President Snow has a quick comeback that puts them right back to where they began.

The ending of the movie also takes a few dramatic turns that will leave the viewers wondering who will really win once everything is said and done.

Though this has been one of the highest grossing movies of the season, mostly because of the gigantic fan base that follows it, it doesn’t quite seem to live up to the previous too. It’s quite lengthy at a little over two hours, but at the same time it seems to be ridiculously drawn out. In fact, it could be argued that there was absolutely no reason to break the final book of the trilogy into two movies. A lot of the scenes are unimportant or boring and could’ve been cut completely to make room for it to just be finished already and the only actual reason they probably divided it up was to suck as much money out of this thing as possible before it ends.

The whole movie seems to be building up to something but at some point it just starts going back downhill. The excitement was pointless for there was no real climax and the ending leaves the viewer feeling unsatisfied for there is no real conclusion at all. If they were in fact following the footsteps of the Deathly Hollows, they should’ve taken better notes because this whole experience could be summoned up to one word; mediocre.

That being said, the actors were very well cast and played, per usual, and can’t be blamed for Hollywood’s new obsession with taking a decent plot and dragging it out way too long. The movie itself seemed to follow the books pretty good, enough to make the readers happy, and the actual idea behind it is grounds to make a kick ass movie. The tension built up in this part will seemingly and hopefully lead to a much better second half, and hopefully there won’t be as much criticism with Mocking Jay Part 2.