Gire: Undernourished 'Mockingjay' fails to feed 'Hunger Games' franchise
"Mockingjay, Part 1," the third in "The Hunger Games" film series, could go either the way of "Return of the Jedi" (worst of a trilogy) or the way of "Return of the King" (best of a trilogy).
"Mockingjay" wastes no time in tipping us off that it's the former.
The characters, once fresh and immediate creations, move like solemn chess pieces across the screen. Each scene, once tight and energized, feels sluggish and protracted. The crisp dialogue, now flabby and perfunctory, fails to propel the narrative along as it did in the previous dramas.
Then, the issue of dumbness enters the process, especially when we're supposed to believe that the impoverished residents of the supposedly destroyed District 13 somehow obtained a NASA-sized grant to build a huge, secret underground city with short- and long-range missile capabilities right under the prying eyes of the all-controlling Capitol with its snakelike President Snow (again played by Donald Sutherland with Vincent Price-less villainy).
Fortunately, Jennifer Lawrence still creates a watchable and emotionally connected Katniss, although here she's less the girl on fire than the girl on sparks.
After surviving the 75th annual Hunger Games and disrupting the Capitol's energy grid, Katniss becomes the political pawn of District 13's President Coin (Julianne Moore), who, along with game strategist and Capitol defector Plutarch Heavensbee (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, for whom this movie is dedicated) wants Katniss to be the symbol for the campaign against dictator Snow.
Meanwhile, poor Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) has been recruited by the Capitol to spout pro-Snow propaganda and urge Katniss to stop helping the rebels during TV interviews with Stanley Tucci's effusive host Caesar Flickerman.
"What have they done to him?" Katniss wonders, noting that the zombielike Peeta sounds and appears strange.
However bizarre Peeta gets, he rallies at a key moment on TV to warn Katniss that government troops are on the way to District 13 - just as officials abruptly cut the broadcast. But too late to stop Peeta's warning!
Wait just a moment.
You mean the Capitol can build futuristic military aircraft and create an entire world under an electrified dome, but nobody ever thought to install a seven-second delay on broadcasts just in case someone uttered obscenities or anti-Snow comments on Flickerman's show?
(Apparently, they did that in "Girl on Fire" when censors bleeped out Johanna Mason's explicitly worded speech.)
With Peeta out of the way, Katniss' hunky original main squeeze Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) - the only fighter who uses the services of a personal hairdresser between battles - moves back onto the heroine's radar, clocking more screen time here than in previous movies.
In other supporting character ranks, Elizabeth Banks has fun taking her effetely picky Effie Trinket out of her comfort zone into a world without wigs and makeup.
Woody Harrelson's games trainer Haymitch Abernathy, a strong central character before, now pops in almost as an afterthought, humorously lamenting President Coin's alcohol prohibition.
Lionsgate Films no doubt broke Suzanne Collins' third "Hunger Games" novel into two movies to double the box office potential, as happened in making movies out of the last "Twilight" novel and last "Harry Potter" book.
"Mockingjay, Part 1," directed by Francis Lawrence, clearly shows that half of Collins' book doesn't have the quality content to justify an entire feature film.
That puts the Austrian-born filmmaker in the precarious position of having directed both the best and worst chapters in the series so far.
Stay tuned for "Part 2" in November 2015.
“Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1”
★ ★
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Other: A Lionsgate Films release. Rated PG-13 for violence. 125 minutes