It’s a good thing that “The Hunger Games” has so much interesting story and undertones about the power of the media and propaganda behind it. It skirts dangerously close to a movie that’s nothing but set up to the second half of the final film. It’s padded and filled with a lot of discussion that seemingly goes nowhere, but through its flaws, I appreciated where it brought the story of Katniss Everdeen. It doesn’t hurt that Jennifer Lawrence single handedly keeps the movie from diving in to the deep end with her powerful turn as the reluctant heroine. As I mentioned, “The Hunger Games” dealt with various stages of Katniss’s life as a celebrity. She built a revolution in the first movie, had to maintain her celebrity status in the second movie, and here she’s now a pawn for a rebellion.
Director Francis Lawrence revels in exploring the power of cinema and how Katniss is built as a bonafide goddess through the power of cinema and war propaganda. Now that Katniss has escaped the destroyed District 75, she is taken to District 13 where she and other rebels have been kept tightly in a bunker. Katniss is then introduced to the rebel leader (Julianne Moore) who reveals to her that she has inspired riots and massive rebellion. The problem is the movement needs an icon and a deity to look up to, and Katniss has been chosen to present the fight against President Snow. Armed with a camera crew and a new set of armor and weapons, Katniss begins exploring the real effect she’s had on everyone, and decides to implement her tools of the camera to battle against President Snow’s fierce campaign to smear Katniss with the help of her best friend Peeta.
Katniss suspects Peeta is being forced in to bad mouthing her over television, and now she decides to head up a rescue crew to retrieve him from Snow’s clutches. “Mocking Jay Part 1” definitely has its merits as a more politically motivated dramatic thriller that doesn’t revolve around a lot of action this time around. There’s no big competition, but there is a war that’s being played through the media and through the channels that allow the rebels to communicate to their people. Surely, President Snow has a wider scope to communicate with the people he holds under his rule, but the rising influence of Katniss becomes impossible to battle. Director Lawrence chronicles the resistance throughout the course of Katniss’s war of media against Snow throughout the narrative, showing how far people are willing to go to honor Katniss and finally strike down Snow’s command. Lawrence’s direction is as good as always with some really entertaining set pieces and moving scenes of psychological warfare between Everdeen and Snow.
There are also a slew of top notch performances with Jennifer Lawrence not missing a beat as Katniss Everdeen. There’s also the welcome return of Woody Harrelson as Katniss’s mentor Haymitch Abernathy, and Elizabeth Banks as Effie. There’s also the welcome introduction of Julianne Moore as the rebel leader President Alma Coin. “Mockingjay Part 1” is an entertaining and different approach to the build up to the confrontation between Everdeen and Snow, and I appreciated its more downbeat intellectual grasp of how wars can be fought through film and media. Did we really need a two pronged final film? Not really. Does “Mockingjay” end as an entertaining first part to a bigger war? It surely does. It’s not a masterpiece, but it sets up the game pieces for what promises to be a grand finale. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all draws to a close.