(Slight spoilers ahead, nothing serious, if you intend to see this movie).
The Hunger Games is an interesting franchise to me, mainly because it's one of those things I neither love nor hate. I've not read the books and don't tend to rewatch the films, but they're not bad films. I've often joked that The Hunger Games should have the slogan:
If your girlfriend drags you to the cinema to see one film this year, make sure it's The Hunger Games.
Because, well, it's better than a lot of the alternatives.
There are real stakes found in The Hunger Games movies, some very good character development (Katniss remains one of my favourite female protagonists of all time) and concepts, but I've always felt that the previous films couldn't quite escape their 'young adult' origins. Not to say that's a bad thing, there's often a lot of bile on the internet for the 'young adult' age bracket or 'young adult' novels, but it's a legitimate target audience. Only at my age, I become less interested in that area.
A lot of first two The Hunger Games films are a satire of celebrity culture, and it's good satire, clever satire, but at the end of the day, it is still spending an awful lot of time concerned with what our heroine will be wearing, how to dress her up and style her, and oh look how famous she is and isn't this just what it's like for X-Factor contestants? Given the bleak backdrop, as I said, it is an intelligent satire, a dark look at a potential conclusion for our reality TV show obsessed media, but it still to me feels as if it is designed to resonate with a younger audience, and often the obsession with fashion and style can feel, in my opinion, a little patronising, as if the films are trying to be intentionally 'girly' to offset the later violence.
And while the films leave no doubt that the government that have set up these games is an evil one, we understand just how dark and brutal they are, they're almost a background detail, used to set up the story of the games and everything our heroine goes through, when all the time you think there is a wider story there. How does a government like that maintain control, why aren't people rebelling? Surely there's more of a story here than the yearly TV show they run?
And then Mockingjay arrives.
I didn't think they'd ever go down that route. I thought it was what an adult audience might think while watching these films, imagining the potential of what must be going on with this government off screen, but Mockingjay seems to proudly reject the 'Young' in 'Young Adult' and push this story as dark as it can, and it should go. This is no longer a movie about celebrities. It's no longer a movie about TV shows. This is now a war movie. And it really shows.
Mockingjay Part One opens after the facist government have cracked down on the populace after seeing the escape from the previous Hunger Games (the games in the film, not the movie) as an act of rebellion. In return, they've wiped out an entire district (one of only twelve, making you wonder just how they're expecting their people to survive if they can wipe out roughly 1/13th of the remaining human population, but this is an evil empire, what do you expect?), but this has only strengthened people's resolve to rebel.
The problem? Katniss, our heroine, didn't know anything about it. She's become the face of the rebellion, but through the manipulations of others. It'd be like if Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star by accident. And while on paper this can make it sound like Katniss is portrayed perhaps in a weak manner, it doesn't work like that in the film. We do, at first, see her traumatised from the games, but this really works. I often also talk about my hatred of writing strong female characters as being female characters with no flaws whatsoever. They don't bleed or get hurt and seem untouchable. That to me is not good writing. A great female character should suffer just as a great male character does. My favourite male heroes are ones like Indiana Jones and John McClane, who really bleed, suffer but manage to win in the end. They get beaten up and they lose at times, but they power through. Katniss fits that mould perfectly throughout all the films, suffering, bleeding but winning.
Instead, she instantly becomes more relatable, forceful and heroic for it. The big war coming asks moral questions, often it seems like the rebels are just as manipulative as the villains, but Katniss is in it for personal reasons. Protect her family and save hostages held by the capital. One is her potential love interest, yes, but the film makes sure that Katniss wants to rescue all the hostages, and not just him. And as the film progresses, and she sees the carnage brought on by the enemy, she becomes the hero they all want to pretend she is, morally outraged, skilled and ready to fight. Even if she never feels like she's that person, which again makes her more relatable.
The media satire is still there, but somewhat more subtle here. The rebels primary weapon against the evil Capitol is not any armaments from their secret stash of weapons (and I have to admit, I was a little disappointed by the 'we have an entire heavily armed rebel army that's just been hiding this whole time' revelation) but propaganda. Their original intention in rescuing Katniss was to shoot her on a dodgy blue screen and get her to read cheesy lines to inspire the troops. Meanwhile, the Capitol fights back by making captured survivor Peeta (how I wish he was just called 'Peter') in to a spokesman against the war, cashing in on his celebrity status. We see criticisms of the Rebel leader for not being charismatic enough or giving flashy enough speeches, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is one of the rebel leaders, but there practically as a media spin doctor than in any leadership capacity. But this feels less blatant than in the previous films, and remains believable. A particularly clever nod comes when the first official rebel piece of propaganda is shown, and the font, logo and style of the video is practically identical to the film trailers for the Hunger Games franchise. Why wouldn't, in a media obsessed culture, propaganda resemble film trailers?
The film makes some brave choices direction wise too. In a sequence that I'm sure sceptics will call budget saving, our heroine and the cast survive a bombing run on their current home underground in bunkers, only we never cut away to see the actual bombing. We only see reactions, dust falling from the rooftops, and huddled survivors. We see the result of the devastation when we emerge, but none of the actual horror. The entire sequence is sold on the acting alone (and this film is Jennifer Lawrence's best performance, and she's someone with a back catalogue of very strong performances) and it makes the scenario feel much more realistic and believable, and helps you relate to the characters a lot more. These decisions are repeated throughout the movie, where the audience is kept in the dark along with Katniss as often things go wrong or change and we don't find what has happened until she does. This again actually works really well in putting the audience in her position, while lending the film some integrity. A lesser director would be tempted to use these moments for big marketable action sequences, but here it's resisted.
Easily the strongest entry in the franchise yet, a film that makes the dubious decision to split the finale in to two movies seem logical (although of course, a lot of that depends on how the second part goes), it never felt tired, dragged out or dull (unlike The Hobbit movies, a franchise that definitely shouldn't have been split in three), and is definitely worth a watch.
You know, actually by your own free will, instead of being dragged to see it by your girlfriend.
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