For people who have read The Hunger Games books – aside from being able to snidely hint they know how the series ends – widely view the final Hunger Games novel, ‘MockingJay’, as where author Suzanne Collins lost her mojo.
So, the seemingly insurmountable challenge for Director Francis Lawrence and crew is this: how to adapt a weak story into not one, but two feature films, and satisfy audiences while keeping the book purists happy.
Indeed, it’s a precarious seesaw. But overall, the new Hunger Games movie takes the source material and, aided by a spectacular cast and an immersive atmosphere, seems to tick both boxes.
Set almost immediately after the events of Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a shell of her former self. She is now the symbol of the revolution taking place across the 12 districts against the villainous President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the utilitarian Capitol that revels in the misery of the slave districts while living lives of excess and obliviousness. The intention of this next chapter in the series is to expose the two different worlds and collide them in a civil war for the ‘rebels’ to reinstall democracy to the state of Panem.
The film is essentially one very long second act, which proves unsatisfying by the time the credits roll. This is a major risk that Hollywood takes by splitting their series into multiple conclusive sequels.
Harry Potter’s weakest film is easily the seventh and second last, Deathly Hallows Part One, and in the case of Hunger Games it has happened again. This episode is predominately set in District 13, where an army has been building for over 75 years to fight back against the Capitol. It leaves Katniss as the passive protagonist for the most part, being used as a tool to unite the districts, and it takes the realisation of seeing her home district totally destroyed to finally take action.
At the same time, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is prisoner in the Capitol and is being used as a tool by President Snow to manipulate the citizens with propaganda. His role is hugely limited in this film compared to the others, as is Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) who take a back seat to setup President Coin of District 13 (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman) as leaders of the rebellion.
On the other hand, this movie can be viewed as dealing with the aftermath of the last Hunger Games. There are heavy themes of remorse and regret, with Katniss spending more than a handful of scenes in a crying mess… and she isn’t the only one. Most cast members are preparing for war, and they are scared.
This film brilliantly sets out the truly hellish world that these people live in and drives home the fact that President Snow is truly evil and will do anything to stay in power. Its around this time the film suddenly becomes about retribution and revolution, and you can feel the audience starting to get excited…
…then the credits roll.
By no means is this a bad movie, its a necessary one; and the themes and notions from this installment of The Hunger Games series has setup what is sure to be an epic finale in MockingJay Part Two.
The Hunger Games is now showing in cinemas across Canberra.
