The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay Part 1

Movie Title--  The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Release Year--  2014

Running Time--  2 Hours and 3 Minutes

Director--  Francis Lawrence

Cast--  Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jullianne Moore, Willow Shields, Donald Sutherland, Sam Clafin, Elizabeth Banks, Natalie Dormer, Stanley Tucci, Jena Malone, Paula Malcolmson, Jeffery Wright, Mahershala Ali

Katniss Everdeen is taken to District 13 where she is asked by President Coin to become the face of the rebellion.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is awake in the middle of the night after having a bad dream.  She is found and forced back to bed, then sedated to  help her sleep.  When she wakes, she learns that Finnick Odair (Sam Clafin) has been rescued from the quarter quell arena as well as Beetee (Jeffery Wright) but Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) was not rescued and is still missing.  

The day she is released from medical care, she is taken straight to President Coin (Jullianne Moore), the leader of District 13 and the rebel forces.  Katniss is asked to become the face of the rebellion by becoming the Mockingjay once again.  She does not want to be a figurehead for the rebels but Plutarch Heavensbee (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) insists that once Katniss sees what happened to District 12, she will be on board.  

Katniss is led to an aircraft that is waiting to take her to District 12 and as she walks up she sees Gale Hawthorn (Liam Hemsworth) standing there waiting for her.  Katniss sees the destruction that came to her home after she took down the quarter quell arena.  After seeing the District in ashes, she finds her way to her home which is still standing and picks up some of her mother's (Paula Malcolmson) herbs and her sister Prim's (Willow Shields) cat Buttercup.  She then goes into the study and retrieves a picture of her father when she sees a bouquet of flowers on the desk dying, all except one white rosebud left by President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

When she returns to the base in District 13, she fights with the idea of becoming the face of the rebellion and at dinner, a transmission comes in from the Capitol featuring Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) interviewing Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).  Shocked and overcome by the sight of Peeta, Katniss stands and moves closer to hear what he has to say.  After a moment, Peeta begins to tell the people to lay down their weapons and not to fight.  The people in District 12 then begin to call Peeta a traitor and she runs from the room.  That night, neither sister is able to sleep, so they begin talking and Prim tells her that to get her help, the people that hold the power will giver her just about anything.  The next day Katniss goes to President Coin to tell her that she will be the Mockingjay if they retrieve Peeta and the other Tributes that are being held as soon as possible, they pardon the rescued Tributes and they let her sister keep her cat.

Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) is then brought onto the team to help prepare Katniss for the propaganda films they are going to make to help fuel the rebellion.  It is a failure because Katniss does not seem convinced of what she is doing and Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) suggests that they do something to put Katniss in her element.  They decide to take her to District 8 where the Capitol has been bombing and capture her speaking with the wounded.  While they are there, they are attacked and in the aftermath Katniss proclaims, "This is a message for President Snow, if we burn, you burn with us!" helping to ignite the other Districts.

This causes retaliation from the Capitol and they put Peeta on show in front of the cameras once more, this time not looking well, causing Katniss to be concerned for his safety.  She realizes as he is speaking to the citizens that he has no idea what has happened to District 12.  She tells President Coin but Beetee is having a problem breaking into the Capitol's security system that he himself designed.  

After an uprising in District that ends with a damn being blown, Beetee is able to get footage through and Peeta sees snip its of a video where Katniss is walking through the annihilated District 12 and he tells her that Capitol forces are coming to destroy District 13.  The entire District is evacuated into a bunker and District 13 gets off just slightly roughed up.  

Once they citizens are able to come out of the bunker, Katniss is told that forces have been sent in to save the Tributes and Gale was the first person to volunteer for the job.  Once the team is inside, it becomes apparent that there is a chance that they are going to be caught, so Katniss requests to speak to President Snow and asks him to take her in place of Peeta and he declines, then tells her that he knows rebel forces are inside the Capitol.  Katniss and the rest of the team then wait with baited breath to learn the outcome of the team and the captive Tributes.

I loved it.  It isn't often I actually get to go to the movies and ever rarer that I get to go on opening day, so I am so glad this film didn't let me down.  The story is great and I am disappointed that I am going to have to wait a whole year to see how it will end (as I have mentioned before, I have yet to read the books but by the time Part 2 is released I will have made it my goal to read all three books).

This film is visually stunning.  The colors are dark and drab when showing the rebels and their living conditions and darker still when showing the aftermath of the destruction that the Capitol has brought to them.  When the Capitol is being show, the colors are bright and sterile; this helps to show how much of a difference there is between the rebels and the man with the power and it goes to show that just because one force is wearing white, they may not particularly happen to be the good guys.

I don't know who I am more in love with, Gale Hawthorn or Peeta Mellark; both characters are strong in their ways and the actors that were chosen to play each are just awesome.  Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson are great to watch, although I feel like for two central characters they were not shown as often as maybe they could have been.  Of course with Peeta being in the Capitol there was a big reason that he didn't appear too often but I assumed that Gale was a little more important than he seemed to be in this film.  

Jennifer Lawrence was great, as usual, in this film.  I thought she did a very good  job of pulling off the tortured soul feel of her character.  You have to feel for Katniss Everdeen, she only wanted to keep her sister and Peeta alive and this is what has happened to her and the Districts that decide to stand with her.

This film is great and I recommend going to the theater to see it if you are able to.  I was asked by a co-worker if it was acceptable to take her 9 year old son to and I told her it was, especially since he has read the books and seen the previous two films.  I say judge for yourself if you have any young people that will be interested in this film.  Visit the concessions while you are there but Don't Forget the Popcorn!