Why Mockingjay Part 1 Works

As much as I love the Harry Potter series, there was always something awkward about splitting the final book into two separate movies (something that's apparently becoming quite a popular move for studios these days). The first half of that seventh book is easily the most boring and frustrating segment of the entire franchise... so giving it its own movie when parts of books four, five, and six were so awkwardly breezed over seemed almost criminal at the time. Still Harry Potter was good enough. So when Lionsgate came out and said they were going to do a similar thing with the final Hunger Games book, I groaned. It felt like just another money grab.

But Mockingjay is very different from The Deathly Hallows. And walking out of this movie, I felt like they actually did find enough material and import... Mockingjay Part 1 made sense. Despite the awkward cliffhanger ending (which if you'll recall also existed in Catching Fire), there was a legitimate through line. The characters seemed to develop in the way you'd hope for an individual feature. Plot was given its due to the point that the movie never felt like it was just treading water. In short, the split of Mockingjay into two films seems to be working.

Combine that thought with the chance to see Philip Seymour Hoffman at least one more time on screen and I gotta admit I'm a little excited for the final piece of this series.

Now I'm honestly not as big a fan of Jennifer Lawrence as the rest of the world seems to be. I generally feel like she gets more credit than she deserves because her personality outside of the movies feels like the opposite of the kind of celebrity attitude we've come to expect. But she did have some solid moments here. She did just enough to keep me on board and at the end of the day, that's all you can ask for. Donald Sutherland seems to be having a blast throughout this franchise, and I really like to see that. When good actors are having fun, you know good things are gonna happen. So between Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore, Elizabeth Banks, and Stanley Tucci it became apparent that the studio understood this methodology and truly spared no expense in getting such high caliber actors for their big time book franchise.

Mockingjay Part 1 works. It's as simple as that. And I won't be one to argue with Lionsgate or anyone else about their choices as far as this franchise is concerned. The first Hunger Games was so-so, but since then it's all been up hill.

Catching Fire Is So Much Better Than Its Predecessor

I did not expect much from Catching Fire.

After all, The Hunger Games had managed to take an interesting concept and make it utterly boring. Before the film was first released, I actively wanted to sit down and read the books. Then I saw what had made it to screen and felt the novel couldn't possibly be as good as everyone said. But Catching Fire has inverted that disposition. Now I'm back on board. I wanna read all three. I really do.

There was something about this film that was just so much more compelling. Granted, the information had to be there from the first one. But this time around it just felt as though the filmmakers managed to hit all of those little notes that the first one skipped over. Characters were more relatable, relationships seemed more consistent, the world felt clearer... pretty much anything that could have been better, was.

Well minus some of the effects, but even most of those were passable.

The thing that worked the least for me about the first one was the foreknowledge that almost everyone you met was going to die (something that's never a problem in Battle Royale by the way).

Oh, they're all gonna die.

This was made worse by the casting of a slew of no-names with little to no shot of ever being recognized for their five seconds of screen time... Once again, Catching Fire fixed that.

In adding actors like Jeffrey Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman (a huuuge upgrade over Wes Bentley), and Jena Malone in supporting roles it felt like the filmmakers were actively making decisions about how big this franchise could be.

I know there's only one left, but perhaps that one can be the biggest and best.

Catching Fire is simply a better movie than I anticipated. And I'm glad. I mean, who likes to waste their time on a bad movie?