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<\/a><\/p>\nMOCKINGJAY begins anew following Katniss\u2019 rescue from her arrow-inflicted destruction of the Quarter Quell.\u00a0 In shock, suffering not only extreme PTSD, but with what even appear to be schizophrenic emotional swings, Katniss is no longer the girl on fire Panem (and the real world) came to love.\u00a0 Her emotions are raw, uncontrollable, histrionic. She is panicked and afraid.\u00a0 Gone is the courage and strength that we came to know and love in Katniss.<\/p>\n
Awakening in a secret underground military installation built beneath the ruins of what was once District 13, Katniss learns the fate of her loved ones and her beloved home in District 12.\u00a0 After Katniss destroyed the Quarter Quell, President Snow retaliated and fire-bombed District 12, leaving it a pile of rubble and charred skeletal remains. Out of almost 10,000 residents, only 95 survived; among them, Katniss\u2019 mother, her sister Prim, and best friend Gale.\u00a0 Her mother and Prim are working in the medical unit of the military installation while Gale is a part of the inner circle of President Alma Coin, the unflappable, poised and extremely intelligent leader of the rebellion.\u00a0 Also in the mix is President Coin\u2019s right hand advisor Plutarch Heavensbee.\u00a0 Joining the rebellion and taking refuge in District 13 are Haymitch\u00a0 Abernathy and Effie Trinket.\u00a0 And along with Katniss\u2019 extraction from the Quarter Quell, Finnick Odair was also saved and is receiving extensive medical care for his injuries.<\/p>\n
Racked with guilt over what Katniss believes to be the deaths of Peeta, Johanna and Annie during the Quarter Quell, it is only when a series of broadcast interviews featuring Peeta originate from The Capitol that things start to get interesting.\u00a0 Not only is Peeta alive, but it appears he has betrayed Katniss and Panem as a whole, and is now the poster child for President Snow, serving as Snow\u2019s mouthpiece in an effort to destroy Katniss and any hope of a rebellion.\u00a0 And unfortunately, it also sets the stage as being an over-done focus of Katniss\u2019 obsession.<\/p>\n At the suggestion of Plutarch to fight fire with fire, President Coin agrees to feature Katniss as the face of the rebellion, the Mockingjay, in a series of propaganda spots to be broadcast to the residents of other Districts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But Katniss is unmoving, uninspiring in the \u201cpropos\u201d as Plutarch calls them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so it falls to Effie and Haymitch to help Katniss find her inner fire again as everyone works together – even from the bowels of death as Sinna saw this day would come and knew a \u201ccostume\u201d would be necessary –\u00a0 to galvanize Katniss into the face of the\u00a0 revolution.\u00a0\u00a0 With a reality style tv crew at the ready, and dangerous locations serving as inspiration for Katniss, the rebellion uses the media to its own manipulative purpose, inspiring stronger and more defining uprisings among the downtrodden people of Panem.<\/p>\n As the stakes are raised ever higher in a do-or-die mission to rescue Peeta, Johanna and Annie, who intelligence has shown (beyond Peeta\u2019s videos) to all be alive and hidden in the Victory Hall –\u00a0 it falls to tech expert Beetee to hack into The Capitol security and broadcast system so that in a distracting live feed from District 13,\u00a0 Finnick can disclose the secrets of President Snow while Katniss sets the stage with an inflammatory video exchange with Snow for what will be the final showdown for Panem next year in MOCKINGJAY PART 2.<\/p>\n Fans around the globe will rejoice at the returning cast, particularly in the case of Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Hemsworth who are the real reasons to see MOCKINGJAY PART 1.<\/p>\n A now sober Haymitch as played by Harrelson, and everyone\u2019s favorite fashionista Effie as played by Banks, are the humanity of MOCKINGJAY 1.\u00a0 They give the story its heart and soul.\u00a0 Were the potential Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor fields not as crowded as they already are, I could easily see Harrelson garnering supporting awards consideration.\u00a0 Banks adds a touch of self-deprecating humor in that \u201cEffie way\u201d that is not only endearing but gives respite to the darkness while allowing the audience to fully comprehend the stakes of not only the story, but our real world.\u00a0\u00a0 And yes, Effie does show us all that even when confined below ground, feeling like a political refugee, you can still be fashionable with military green.<\/p>\n Liam Hemsworth gets to spread his wings a bit more as Gale, reinforcing what many already believe – Katniss picked the wrong guy in picking Peeta.\u00a0 Hemsworth is strong and sensitive and is allowed with Gale\u2019s character growth to bring in levels of confidence to outshine Jennifer Lawrence\u2019s Katniss.<\/p>\n And what about Lawrence?\u00a0 While there are great moments of strength and fire where Lawrence just explodes, it is the fragile, weak, histrionic scenes – of which there are many – that give way to annoyance.\u00a0 It\u2019s also interesting to note that we\u2019re seeing \u201cJ-Law Tells\u201d now being added to Katniss with certain moments of dialogue or delivering speeches, uncreasing wrinkled speech notes.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if the red-carpet turned olive drab for the film.\u00a0 Quite frankly, it takes one out of the world of Panem.<\/p>\n Donald Sutherland is deliciously evil and cunning, using elocution and vocal pacing to tell us more about Snow than we ever dared to know.\u00a0 It\u2019s not what is said or not said that makes Snow, it\u2019s how it\u2019s said and Sutherland is perfection.\u00a0 As his presidential counter-part Alma Coin, Julianne Moore is a welcome addition to the franchise.\u00a0 With meticulous precision, Moore makes Coin a formidible woman in complete emotional and physical control of the situation at hand.\u00a0 She shines and quite honestly, I would relish a face-to-face between she and Sutherland.\u00a0 There are moments her presence reminds you of a commanding Eva Peron on a balcony speaking to the legions, but here, instead of a balcony, the 40 floors deep concrete assembly bunker looks more like the famous backgrounds of Nazi Germany and Hitler, creating very interesting food for thought.<\/p>\n In his second-to-last big screen role, Philip Seymour Hoffman returns as Plutarch while Stanley Tucci\u2019s typically over-the-top flamboyant Caesar Flickerman is downplayed and subdued this go-round into a darker, more manipulative Capitol mouthpiece.\u00a0\u00a0 Sam Claflin is back as Finnick Odair but is pretty much in check until the climactic final scenes where his dramatic gravitas soars with a quiet strength.\u00a0 Jena Malone is back as Johanna Mason but is held for the final scenes, setting the stage for her presence in the final chapter.\u00a0 Jeffrey Wright is also back as wheelchair-bound high-tech wizard Beetee and adds upbeat optimism.\u00a0 And then there\u2019s Josh Hutcherson who as a brainwashed Peeta runs the gamut from polished and calm to frantic and edgy to totally off the wall killing machine.\u00a0 Great emotional depth from Hutcherson.<\/p>\n Written by newcomers to the franchise, Peter Craig and Danny Strong, the script strongly follows Suzanne Collins\u2019 allegorical novel, but also has some defining touches and carefully constructed commentary that goes beyond allegory and metaphor, vibrantly embracing our world today, politics, geopolitical warfare and, notably, media manipulation.\u00a0 Structured with some 80% of the film inside the confines of the concrete bunker and a large portion of the story trying to create the persona and image of the \u201cMockingjay\u201d herself and plan\u00a0 propaganda, tedium comes into the mix and the film feels \u201cdragged out\u201d solely for the purposes of creating a Part 2 of this chapter of the film aka \u201cThe Harry Potter Syndrome\u201d.\u00a0 But the concurrent problem the tedium creates is a sense of clinicism.\u00a0 The film has a very clinical approach to it with little emotional gravitas signifying revolution.\u00a0 Where the script succeeds in spades is the climactic ending which has even me chomping at the bit for MOCKINGJAY PART 2.\u00a0 And yes…. stay all the way through the credits.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n With Francis Lawrence again at the helm and joined by cinematographer Jo Willems, production dollars surely could have been saved just pulling news footage from today\u2019s world.\u00a0 There are images of executions, burned bodies and rubbled cities that could just as easily be from anywhere in the Middle East today.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sad commentary on our own world that this \u201cfictional\u201d future dystopian society mirrors much of the 21st Century today.\u00a0 Refreshing is a jaunt by Gale and Katniss into the woods and blissful respite by the cool waters and green foliage.\u00a0 Applause to Willems and production designer Philip Messina for adding some visual Litvak-style texture to the spiraling bunker and claustrophobic cement walls; very scaled back, minimalist design and lensing that work well for the darker tenor of the film while still adding visual and emotional appeal.<\/p>\n But throughout it all, although solidly packaged with, for the most part, solid performances, MOCKINGJAY PART 1 feels restrained.\u00a0 The exuberance and anticipatory excitement within both \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and \u201cCatching Fire\u201d is missing here.\u00a0 Perhaps because the film hits so close to home in this day and age.\u00a0 Or perhaps because Lawrence played it safe with his direction.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n