The makers of “The
Hunger Games” films were on to something when they cast Jennifer Lawrence.
Despite winning an Oscar for a film that was
not drawn from a YA novel, and being the young woman whose career is most on
fire among Hollywood’s young women, Lawrence shows up for work in “The Hunger
Games: Mockingjay – Part I” like it’s her only job.
She is as fresh and
unmannered as ever as Katniss Everdeen, reluctant participant in teen battles
to the death who becomes, in this third “Games” film installment, reluctant
poster girl for the rebellion against the government of dystopian Panem.
Whether showing fear, confusion or defiance, Lawrence always comes across as
authentic.
Perhaps because of
her experience in other films, she also brings a new-found command to the
screen in “Part I.” Her sympathetic-magnetic pull is the only consistently
winning aspect of this film, which never captivates like its two predecessors –
movies that, not coincidentally, adapted entire books.
The stretching of the
third book in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy into two parts really shows in “Part I,”
which feels three hours long when it’s really two. That the ending would not
wrap things up was to be expected, since “Part II” is not due for for another
year. Its agonizingly slow beginning was not.
It is so slow that it
allows the viewer to notice that this Panem place really is a drag, and perhaps
not worth visiting for several hours total.
Lawrence, however,
always can be counted on to do something interesting. Like convincingly portray
Katniss as lacking in charisma during the shoot for a propaganda video the
rebel government wants to make. Lawrence lacking screen presence – that’s
acting.
The film begins with
Katniss in District 13. The rebels spirited her there after she wrecked the
Quarter Quell – a sadistic battle of Games champions – in 2013’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.” Though
once believed to have been annihilated, District 13 is the rebellion’s
multilevel, industrial-looking underground home.
Sweet Peeta (Josh
Hutcherson), Katniss’ fellow Games competitor and maybe-fake/maybe-real true
love, was left behind in the Capitol. But Gale (Liam Hemsworth), her handsome
hunting buddy from her District 12 home, is in 13, as are Katniss’ mother and
sister. The Panem government destroyed District 12, which wasn’t that nice in
the first place.
Francis Lawrence, who
also directed “Catching Fire,” shows a smooth hand with action scenes. But
action is scant. This movie instead focuses on Katniss adjusting to life in
gray-brown-industrial District 13, or surveying the bodies (in a scene that
might trouble kids in the audience – if we’re still pretending these films are
kid-friendly at all) in districts attacked by Panem.
There’s adjusting,
surveying, sitting and talking, and little that’s visually stimulating. “Part
I” doubles down on the dreariness of previous “Games” films because the Games
no longer exist. Those Games, as nasty as they were in spirit, offered
colorful, inventive visuals.
Also missing is the
strong sense, from the first films, of the starving masses taking on
1-percenters. Rebel government leader President Coin (Julianne Moore) looks
like an Orwellian Susan Sontag and loves militaristic order and fake photo ops.
She exudes cool authority as someone whose aim might be truer than Panem
President Snow’s (Donald Sutherland, reviving his convivial sneer), but whose
political scheming resembles his.
So she’s the same as
the old boss. How is that anything but depressing for viewers? Granted, it is
not the filmmakers’ fault that Collins created this character. But the
1-percenter move of reaping more box-office receipts by splitting the author’s
final book in two is their fault. By all indications, the
filmmakers are saving both the action scenes and any sense of hope for the
final installment.
Plutarch Heavensbee
(Philip Seymour Hoffman), the one-time Capitol gamemaker and secret rebellion
collaborator, now serves as Coin’s close assistant. But unlike Coin, he is not
humorless.
Heavensbee acts as
wry advocate for Katniss, when the president at first does not understand the
fuss surrounding the girl on fire and why Heavensbee thinks her face will fuel
the rebellion. But once Heavensbee and Coin ignite Katniss’ passion by sending
her into the field to see the destruction left by Panem, Coin gets it.
Hoffman’s proud-papa
expression, once Katniss demonstrates Heavensbee’s faith is warranted, makes
you wish there were more instances of this avuncular fellow. Before his death
in February, Hoffman was making an interesting transition from playing tortured
souls to playing
authority figures.
Audience favorites
Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), the oft-drunk former Games champion, and Effie
(Elizabeth Banks), the Games-contestant escort struggling to find beauty in
drab District 13, make fun but too-brief appearances.
Teem Peeta members
will be disappointed that Hutcherson, who is such a reassuring presence in
these movies, appears infrequently in “Part I.” Hemsworth appears more often.
But not only is Gale the less compelling Katniss love interest, Liam is the
less compelling Hemsworth brother.
The film ultimately
rests on Lawrence, and though she never disappoints, a single actress – even
one as lovely and lovable as she – cannot save a blockbuster film. It’s as
unfair to place that burden on Lawrence as it is for District 13 to put the
rebellion on Katniss’ shoulders.
