It's been a while since the last installment of the Hunger Games, and for those who do not know what this movie is... you probably don't see movies much... I remember this movie as the first movie to show its advertisements almost a year before it really came out (or was it six months) which I thought was a bit extravagant. Nonetheless, its one of those movies that follows a book similar to LOTR and Harry Potter and is currently doing a Harry Potter thing which is instead of being a normal Trilogy, they take the last book/episode and split it into two.
What this means is that you will not get closure at the end of this movie. It's more like seeing a serial or a normal TV show where it will end abruptly. What this also means is that you probably need to manage your expectation when you see the movie. I will tell you more as we move along
For those who do not know, this movie is set in an alternative universe where by all the people in the world are divided into districts. In their districts they are in charge of various tasks and products that they will supply to the capital where all the rich and famous and strange people live. So you have districts that focus on woodworks, some that focus on mining, some on farming etc. So every year or some time that I don't remember, there is hunger game whereby some people from the districts are selected to fight to the death and the last remaining person gets much riches and food and all that. So obviously after many years of doing this, you soon get some sort of rebellion started which is the focus of the next set of movies starting with Mockingjay Part I. So this is the starting phase of the rebellion itself. To not give any further spoilers, the introduction ends at this point. Here's some pictures
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| The movie that started it all |
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| The continuation, look at her bow! |
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| This movie's poster!! Look her bow is gone.. wonder why |
So if you did not watch the first two however, I would recommend that you actually see the first two because it does add some value to the movie especially since it introduces everything that happens and the new world that this movie is based in. In fact, I will go as far as to say, if you didn't see the first two of this movie, you will not enjoy it. You will understand as we go along.
Storyline 4/5
The storyline is the main aspect of this point of the movie. In fact I would say that the storyline makes or breaks the entire enjoyment of the movie because this show lacks action. Yep. Unlike the other 2 movies that came before this, this movie action portion is maybe only about 15% of the entire show.
You pretty much should treat this movie as a build up to the next movie episode where all the action is. The thrilling and exciting sequence is still here in this movie, but there is not much action. See the movie and you will know what I mean.
That is why you have to see the first two, then you will appreciate the build up. Or else you will have zero clue why the main characters in the movie are running all around the place and doing this and that and if you were to see the movie without any background it would probably only be worth 3/5 points.
Characters 3/5
A lot of the development of the movie has been done in the previous movies before this. As such there is not much character development here in this movie. The difficulty this movie faces is that in a world like theirs, the people start to lose their character and basically become like everyone else. And this shows in the movie where everyone else feels relatively similar. You also might not know who many of the people in the movie are if you did not see the previous and hence you will have no clue why they are doing certain actions in the movie.
They do make some fair effort to distinct some people from another by giving them stranger hairdos and characteristics but there won't be nothing spectacular that makes you like any particular person. As in any rebellion there are a few speeches, but I guess it was the aim of the movie to show that because the characters in this movie are not born politicians, the speeches are not as inspiring as it should be.
Cinematography 3.5/5
This movie has some pretty good shots overall but unlike the first two, due to the lack of action scenes there is not much superb action shots. Has some nice outward top down views to show u more about the world and it does have the occasional epic things happening.
There is only portion in this movie however, that shows you that you can make a movie very thrilling, without having action. They do this towards the end of the movie so watch out for it the way they build up the audience and not have to worry about blowing extra money on budget. Hopefully, this translates to a more epic part II.
Music 4/5
The musical score does a very good job in this movie. In fact, music is used up to build a certain portion of the movie which is pretty creative although sometimes it feels slightly awkward to have someone singing as a part of the movie. Nonetheless it did a good job adding entertainment value to the show itself
Spectacle 4/5
Overall, especially for people who read the book and saw the first two, this movie does the story telling portion very creatively and well. But being the only focus of this movie, it takes a toll on the action scenes which is pretty minor for this movie. Thrilling factor however picks up very well towards the end of the movie and you will probably enjoy that portion of the movie well enough to say that the movie was in the end pretty entertaining. Its not the best and they could have done many things differently to cater to the more main stream action lovers, but for storyline lovers, this movie does well enough.
Overall
Storyline 4 (Main focus of the movie, does it pretty well, moves the story along to build up for the next movie)
Character 3 (Did not spend too much effort on this because this was done in the previous movie, if you didn't see the previous, you might get lost)
Cinematography 3.5 (Good effort and has some enjoyable shots but wasn't the focus of this movie)
Music 4 (Creatively incorporated in the music into the show and added much entertainment value)
Spectacle 4 (Did well on both the thriller and storyline fronts but sacrificed a bit of action for the movie, probably was not the focus either)
Overall 3.7 (My advice to you is, see the first two before you see this or it will not be enjoyable to you, and also if you think you are going to see the continuation of this movie in the future you can go ahead and watch it. The storyline and entertainment value of the movie is definitely there if you are a fan but just not derived from the usual pure action sequences. Not having too many epic scenes however means that you could actually just wait for Part II to come out and then see the movies together for you to have a complete picture instead of being cliff hangered but its up to you. Nonetheless, its a worthwhile way to spend a movie session especially since its quite a long movie)
Here is something fun for you to do! As you can see from the poster, this girl likes bows and arrows a lot. Count the number of arrows she fired in this movie!!!
