Two halves are better than one. This idea seems to have become white noise for Hollywood producers and that means no literary adaptation is safe. The trend of splitting final books in a series into multiple films has been, in a nutshell, creatively disastrous -- exemplified by the uneven Harry Potter finale and the criminally overstuffed Hobbit films.
Things were looking up for the Hunger Games series, with director Francis Lawrence coming off delivering a spectacular entry that lives up to the hype with Catching Fire. Alas, good will alone can't save the series' last installment from the dreaded split, as Mockingjay - Part 1 comes up largely empty on content, making for the dullest entry in the saga of Katniss Everdeen yet.
After the events of Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is taking refuge in the secret underground world of District 13, once thought to be bombed out of existence. There, publicity master Plutarch Heavensby (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and stoney district president Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) are intent on molding Katniss into the face of the rebellion. Katniss, meanwhile, is more hung up on crying over Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), the Capitol's hostage, who is being used to denounce the rebellion. Once she witnesses the Capitol's capacity for cruelty and with a promise to rescue Peeta in place, Katniss embraces her destiny as the Mockingjay.
The general justification behind splitting a final installment into two movies is that it allows for a more detail and closer adherence to the book. True to form, Mockingjay - Part 1 basks in capturing the intricacies from its source material, taking things slow to catch everything it can.The unfortunate result is a film that has, realistically, about an hour of good content stretched to two hours, stuffing filler in where it can and killing all pacing.
There is promise in the blocks of the film that do work, with a satisfying look at how this rebellion is fought with publicity as much as combat and a small handful of interesting action sequences and plot turns, including the destruction of a dam.
However, if any book in the series was in need of an overhaul, it would be Mockingjay. In cribbing from and expanding on its source material to the degree needed for a two-parter, the film never finds the visual and emotional pop that we saw in the last story. This can undoubtedly be attributed to so much of the movie consisting of people in identical grey jumpsuits having prolonged conversations in a dingy, underground bunker.
One thing that these movies had going for them through thick and thin was that Katniss was, for the most part, a relatable character and Jennifer Lawrence sold it. Here, even our steadfast protagonist reaches the point of unlikable. For a series that had wisely put the love triangle aspect in the background, Katniss' whole purpose here seems to be to juggle her clearly-interested-friend Gale at an arms length while breaking down to an ever-increasing state of weeping. Every action this character takes here seems to revolve around her fake boyfriend, Peeta, as opposed to, say, the good of others in this rebellion. Unfortunately, in a war between fascists, she's the best we've got to root for -- if only this movie didn't make that such a pessimistic prospect.
There's no doubt that the Hunger Games films are in better hands with Lawrence as director than Gary Ross, but even the I Am Legend helmer's skills aren't enough to avoid being hobbled by an unnecessary split to two parts. After a non-conclusion, Mockingjay - Part 1 ends on a passive cliffhanger, befitting of such a passive movie. Hopefully, Mockingjay will follow the Deathly Hallows pattern of the final part going out with a bang, but for now Part 1 is a film that can't sustain itself on just an hour of content and doesn't come close to justifying it's existence as a separate film. In the long run, it's the equivalent of a big shoulder shrug.
5/10
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