After Katniss Everdeen shattered the games forever, Katniss must fight against all odds and save a nation moved by her courage.
Katniss arms up… against anyone expecting diminishing returns from a four-part trilogy. With measure and muscle, Lawrences Jennifer and Francis nail the job of selling the long, twisting road towards revolution.
The power of emotions in filmmaking is at the heart of this beautifully constructed and self-aware blockbuster. Can't wait for Mockingjay 2.
You can’t help but wonder if it would have made more sense to release Mockingjay as a single feature rather than split it into two. Part 1 matches its predecessors in terms of performance and production values but still feels like half a movie.
The drama and tone are powerful and effective and Lawrence makes an exceptionally charismatic heroine, but an almost total lack of action means this is less catching fire than treading water.
[The director] confidently balances the action and politics, while maintaining a muted tone that ranges from the humour to the costumes.
You admire their boldness but it doesn't make for the most compelling film.
The Hunger Games is declining in power, but not as steeply as I thought, and this weird, operatic nightmare still inhabits the screen with confidence.
Suitability for children aside, echoes of current issues in the news are perhaps the most interesting thing about this well crafted but drawn out sequel, part one of two climactic films made from the final installment of author Suzanne Collins’ blockbuster trilogy.
The universe of The Hunger Games is much more morally complex than any of the other fantasy franchises around and this film ratchets up that complexity by showing Katniss genuinely wrestling in a relatable way with the position she’s found herself in.
Verdict: The story goes on and on.
MJP1 is both less dramatically even and more explicitly didactic than its edgily violent predecessors.
Few multipart movies end elegantly, especially when they are chopped for profit rather than dramatic impact. Mockingjay is no more dextrous than Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, or The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug; you might call its final scene a cliffhanger, but it’s more like watching your cast rev up and drive towards a wall at high speed, then have the cinema hit the lights and tell us all to come back next year.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
RSS feed of Cinema reviews