By: Mike Nisiak

Last Friday saw the release of Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, after a year of waiting since the second movie in the series, Catching Fire. In this film, Katniss is taken to District 13, where she becomes the Mockingjay, a symbol used to inspire the revolution.

I’ll start with the good: There were some parts in the movie that were very touching and, dare I say it, one part that even brought a tear to my eye.

Jennifer Lawrence gives a great performance that effectively shows her helplessness and her inner turmoil during the film. Katniss is hesitant about inspiring people to overthrow the capitol because of the lives that it will cost, but at the same time, she knows that it’s the only way that peace will come to Panem. As such a strong character, it’s very potent to see her breaking down in this way.

As the film creates such strong tensions, it also creates hope. Potential can be seen in the people in District 13, as they work together and have a useful variety of skills amongst them. This is a good setup for Mockingjay Part 2, where everything will depend on this very teamwork.

Now for the bad: Once the movie ended, I realized that not much had happened over the two hours of watching. It seemed to be more about setting up the story for the final movie, in which everything will happen all at once.

The book doesn’t really lend itself to being made into two eventful movies. But I can’t necessarily say that it shouldn’t have been broken up. If it had been one movie, a lot of setting up would have to happen within an hour and way too many things would need to be jammed into the second hour. I suppose that it’s best to have this movie as a sacrifice in order to make the last movie even better.

Overall, the movie serves its purpose of building the tension between the revolutionaries and the capitol. My main complaint is that, even though it serves its purpose, maybe the purpose itself isn’t quite enough to make an eventful film out of just part of the book.

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