Katniss Everdeen, she with the name of a Middle Ages heroine and the arm of a warrior goddess, wields her famed bow and arrow but once in the first part of the final chapter in the movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s fantasy fiction trilogy. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 swaps action for strategy. It’s a smartly written and deadly serious drama, which makes a bow to the various pro-democracy movements that have sprung up around the world in the past few years as well as the role that the media and technology have played in popularising dissent.
The book and the movies are set in a wonderfully realised future characterised by dictatorship, the suspension of individual rights, and general blight. The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire saw Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) lining up with other so-called tributes to compete in a series of reality games as brutal as the gladiatorial sports on which they are modelled. Mockingjay – Part 1 (the second part will be out in 2015) takes off from where Catching Fire left off. Katniss has been rescued by resistance fighters hiding out in District 13, the only zone where the long arm of the totalitarian state that rules the 12 other districts doesn’t reach. Katniss finds herself in the role of an unwilling icon for the resistance, forced to shoot morale-boosting videos for the beaten-down populace and worrying all the while about the fate of her beloved and fellow tribute Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).
Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss as an ever-watchful jungle cat, headlines a cast groaning with big names (Julianne Moore is rebel leader Coin, Philip Seymour Hoffman is strategist Plutarch, Donald Sutherland is the nasty dictator Snow, Elizabeth Banks is the ditzy chaperone). The luxury of having a second part liberates director Francis Lawrence from rushing things along and allows his actors their moments. Mockingjay lets its grown-up themes about democracy, resistance, and totalitarianism unfold at leisure. This round of political games is only a warm-up for what promises to be a showdown between the propaganda-savvy and stylish rulers of the capital Penem and the doughty but drably clad rebels. Before the war come the debates, and this blockbuster has enough intelligence to adequately prepare its troops for battle.
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The book and the movies are set in a wonderfully realised future characterised by dictatorship, the suspension of individual rights, and general blight. The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire saw Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) lining up with other so-called tributes to compete in a series of reality games as brutal as the gladiatorial sports on which they are modelled. Mockingjay – Part 1 (the second part will be out in 2015) takes off from where Catching Fire left off. Katniss has been rescued by resistance fighters hiding out in District 13, the only zone where the long arm of the totalitarian state that rules the 12 other districts doesn’t reach. Katniss finds herself in the role of an unwilling icon for the resistance, forced to shoot morale-boosting videos for the beaten-down populace and worrying all the while about the fate of her beloved and fellow tribute Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).
Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss as an ever-watchful jungle cat, headlines a cast groaning with big names (Julianne Moore is rebel leader Coin, Philip Seymour Hoffman is strategist Plutarch, Donald Sutherland is the nasty dictator Snow, Elizabeth Banks is the ditzy chaperone). The luxury of having a second part liberates director Francis Lawrence from rushing things along and allows his actors their moments. Mockingjay lets its grown-up themes about democracy, resistance, and totalitarianism unfold at leisure. This round of political games is only a warm-up for what promises to be a showdown between the propaganda-savvy and stylish rulers of the capital Penem and the doughty but drably clad rebels. Before the war come the debates, and this blockbuster has enough intelligence to adequately prepare its troops for battle.