Student reflects on promising aspects of film

This past weekend, one of the year’s most anticipated sequels was released into theaters, causing millions of eager cinephiles and adoring fans to line up in hordes at theaters all across the nation. This cinematic phenomenon is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1, the third movie to be released in Lionsgate’s extremely popular Hunger Games series. Based on Suzanne Collins’ adored Hunger Games book trilogy, the events portrayed in the Mockingjay film covers about the first half of the third book of the same name.

The film begins right where the last movie, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, left off. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has now involuntarily become the face of the fledgling rebellion that is beginning to pop-up in the various districts around Panem. While attempting to put on a brave face to inspire and encourage the rebel fighters, she also has to find a way to cope with insane amount of inner turmoil in her own life. Combine the stress of being a symbol of rebellion, the PTSD-like symptoms of being in the Hunger Games twice, the worry about a captured and brainwashed Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), and coping with the complete annihilation of your home and nearly everything you know, and you only begin to delve into Katniss’s fragile psyche.

And of course, let us not forget to mention everyone’s favorite malevolent dictator, President Snow (Donald Sutherland), whose every disturbing move seems to be a psychological ploy to further disturb our extremely perturbed protagonist.

The first thing I enjoyed about this movie was that it was a far quantitative departure from the earlier films of the series. Whereas the first films gave us a universally likeable martyr/unfortunate victim/underdog as our protagonist, this film gives us a very broken and disturbed main character, who constantly seems to be on the edge of losing it. This Katniss is not the same Katniss we saw in the first movie and the movie portrays this change well.

This movie was also different in the fact that the driving force of the movie was character development. In the first installments of the series our eyes were glued to the screen by both the extravagant grandeur of the Capital, and the heart-pounding scenes of adrenaline filled killing in the Games.

The first thing I enjoyed about this movie was that it was a far quantitative departure from the earlier films of the series. Whereas the first films gave us a universally likeable martyr/unfortunate victim/underdog as our protagonist, this film gives us a very broken and disturbed main character, who constantly seems to be on the edge of losing it. This Katniss is not the same Katniss we saw in the first movie and the movie portrays this change well. -Nick Fontes 

While definitely falling short compared to the other two movies in the action department, the stellar acting by Jennifer Lawrence and the trials that her character has to go through in this film definitely give us our moneys’ worth. I enjoyed this because it enabled the movie to go away from the young adult centered, ticket selling machine feeling that was predominant in the earlier movies and gave the audience a much darker, more mature film that people who enjoy watching high caliber acting and movies that deal with darker themes, will tend to enjoy.

Without the action however, the movie does seem to go a little slow at points, especially in the opening 25 minutes. The average movie goer who enjoyed the carnage and thrilling action of the first two movies will be left wanting more.

When I first heard that the third book was going to be expanded into two whole movies, I was excited because I knew that this would allow for a better explanation of important plot points, and for a movie that closely followed the authors vision for the third novel.

The only thing that did not translate from page to screen to well was the depiction of exactly how crazy the main character became because of the events of the novel. Aside from a short scene at the beginning of the movie, the film doesn’t delve into Katniss’s craziness to much.

The final thing I have to say about this movie is that it was, in all honestly, just a two hour trailer for the upcoming final installment in the franchise, but a well done and brilliantly acted trailer nonetheless. You go into this movie excited and wanting, and you leave with both of those desires intensified and the crushing realization of a year long hiatus between the fulfillment of those desires.

This is not a horrible thing, however, as I believe that the job of a part 1 movie is to do just this, intrigue audiences for the epic finale yet to come. I think that this movie was the second best in the series behind Catching Fire, which edged it out because of the sheer awesomeness of the arena, and this movie’s lack of action.

Follow The Feather via Twitter and Instagram: @thefeather and @thefeatheronline. This writer can be reached via Twitter: @NickFontes1.

For more reviews, read the Nov. 12 article, Writing compensates for weak story line, plot.