The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One
Posted by Itheliving 9 years, 5 months ago to Movies
The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One / Rated PG-13 for violence.
The 1st two Hunger Games movies were good films. Above average and exciting. Now, in an attempt to wring every last dollar out of the franchise they have decided to release two films out of what would make one good finale film to double the box office prospects. The film had the biggest opening weekend results of 2015 so far. It was well short of the opening money taken in for the same weekend periods of the 1st two films. And, as a film, it shows it’s shortcomings from beginning to end.
This opening half of a 4 hour plus final part starts out slow then slows down. So little happens in the first hour it probably would not have mattered in which direction they ran the film. At the end of part two our heroine had destroyed the Hunger Games as a viable entertainment and wrecked a lot of personal property. Now she has joined the rebels who are in revolt against the big bosses who live in the nice city. They are undermanned and underarmed. They only have the heroine and her bow and arrow. They all live about 10 miles underground in a big tubular apartment building. The bad guys still have the big city and all the pretty lights.
The good guys decide to make propaganda videos in hope that the heroine will get the people in the other garbage dumps known as The Districts or Area’s or Smelly Places to come to their aid and join the fight against the pretty people who eat real food, get their nails done and grow nice beards. The acting skill of the pretty heroine is zilch so they send her out to the dumps and pick fights with the bad guys. Their hope is that something bad will happen to somebody other than the heroine, film her angry and emotional reaction, which will inspire others to join the fight. This approach has mixed results.
Much of the film is spent with the good guys cowering in the dark underground while giant bombs blow up everything over their heads. They launch occasional attacks against the bad guys but other than power outages in the big city they do not seem to be having much success. Since there is another film to come (in about a year) we know why they are not having much success. The good stuff has to be saved to the real end of this series in Part Two of what is really Part Three. The producers learned that the success of the Harry Potter series was because they stretched the final ending close to when Harry would have been on Social Security.
The cast for the most part hasn’t changed. Some roles that I seem to remember as being killed off were not. They are back. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died of a drug overdose is also back having completed his role in this film before deciding that massive heroin injections didn’t really have any side effects. He was wrong.
I am not sure I am looking forward to Part 2 of Part Three but by the time it is released I may be hungry for more. The studio will be hungry for more money.
Rated 2.2 out of 4.0 reasons this film is still called The Hunger Games, though the games effectively ended in Part Two which actually was part two.
The 1st two Hunger Games movies were good films. Above average and exciting. Now, in an attempt to wring every last dollar out of the franchise they have decided to release two films out of what would make one good finale film to double the box office prospects. The film had the biggest opening weekend results of 2015 so far. It was well short of the opening money taken in for the same weekend periods of the 1st two films. And, as a film, it shows it’s shortcomings from beginning to end.
This opening half of a 4 hour plus final part starts out slow then slows down. So little happens in the first hour it probably would not have mattered in which direction they ran the film. At the end of part two our heroine had destroyed the Hunger Games as a viable entertainment and wrecked a lot of personal property. Now she has joined the rebels who are in revolt against the big bosses who live in the nice city. They are undermanned and underarmed. They only have the heroine and her bow and arrow. They all live about 10 miles underground in a big tubular apartment building. The bad guys still have the big city and all the pretty lights.
The good guys decide to make propaganda videos in hope that the heroine will get the people in the other garbage dumps known as The Districts or Area’s or Smelly Places to come to their aid and join the fight against the pretty people who eat real food, get their nails done and grow nice beards. The acting skill of the pretty heroine is zilch so they send her out to the dumps and pick fights with the bad guys. Their hope is that something bad will happen to somebody other than the heroine, film her angry and emotional reaction, which will inspire others to join the fight. This approach has mixed results.
Much of the film is spent with the good guys cowering in the dark underground while giant bombs blow up everything over their heads. They launch occasional attacks against the bad guys but other than power outages in the big city they do not seem to be having much success. Since there is another film to come (in about a year) we know why they are not having much success. The good stuff has to be saved to the real end of this series in Part Two of what is really Part Three. The producers learned that the success of the Harry Potter series was because they stretched the final ending close to when Harry would have been on Social Security.
The cast for the most part hasn’t changed. Some roles that I seem to remember as being killed off were not. They are back. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died of a drug overdose is also back having completed his role in this film before deciding that massive heroin injections didn’t really have any side effects. He was wrong.
I am not sure I am looking forward to Part 2 of Part Three but by the time it is released I may be hungry for more. The studio will be hungry for more money.
Rated 2.2 out of 4.0 reasons this film is still called The Hunger Games, though the games effectively ended in Part Two which actually was part two.
We went through about 2/3 of the book in that movie. The last 3rd needs much work to make it work better than the book did, but I think we are just going to get the same stuff with some filler in the next movie.
I was hoping that they would improve on the book some, they did not. * Spoiler Alert * The dam seen was just as bad as ever. A single dam that generates all the capitals power (or most of it) and it has no hard point defenses, energy shields or other defenses other than some guys with guns? Who buys that?
I had hoped for more but I did enjoy what they delivered very much so. It was an enjoyable show with very well done political development.
I would rate it more like 3 of 5. It was good and enjoyable but not as good as the first two. This was also true of the three books.
I do agree they are milking the last book for extra money.