An unfulfilling “tide you over until next time” middle installment in the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay is essentially two hours of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) sulking, crying, throwing a tantrum, and generally being an over-wrought emotional teenage girl. Peppered between all the pouting and moping you’ll find some brief but passable action sequences, doubtlessly designed to pacify those who demand more from a movie than close-ups of quivering lips, tear drops, and faces contorted with angst. Like the scene where Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) goes on TV to stall for time with a rambling filibuster, aided only by the instruction “just keep talking” Mockingjay often feels forced, poorly paced, and at least somewhat unnecessary. The first two Hunger Game movies were dramatic and compelling, filled with intriguing convoluted relationships and awkward romantic tension, pulse-pounding battles for survival, and over-the-top flamboyant color, characters, and costumes. Mockingjay conversely, is predominantly set in a cold subterranean concrete bunker, (which looks like a Soviet-era military complex) where everyone assembles for lackluster State of the Union addresses given by Julianne Moore, doing her best Hillary Clinton impersonation as President Alma Coin. For no apparent reason, even among these rebels everyone is required to wear drab grey jumpsuit uniforms borrowed from an uninspired remake of George Orwell’s 1984. The common political thread of grim and oppressive dystopia, makes for a comparison which is decidedly NOT in The Hunger Game’s favor. But the biggest disappointment in Mockingjay, is that genuine emotion fostered by the love story elements from the previous two films, has been forfeited in favor of less engaging emotions, like hysterical neurosis and panic, and Category 5 meltdown-style sadness, expressed in the pained downward gaze of disaffected youth. The random kiss between Katniss and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) has no passion or energy, and leaves the viewer shrugging “What was that about? Where did that come from?” Katniss and Petta (Josh Hutcherson) are not seen on screen together until the final minutes of the movie. In essence, they have a long-distance relationship, and their communication is reduced exclusively to short digital video messages on a broadcasted public forum. On second thought, perhaps that is the most realistic element of the story. As one might expect from the Hunger Games franchise, there is plenty of illogical political machinations, featuring nameless and faceless storm troopers who routinely execute dissenters, protesters, and even hospitals full of the sick and dying, on the whim of President Snow, (Donald Sutherland) whose white beard makes him look like an evil Santa Claus. In Mockingjay, President Snow has a bizarre and inexplicable fascination with leaving behind glistening white roses as a sort of murderous dictator’s calling card. One has to wonder if the Capital has an official Ministry of Sinister Flowers, or some such similar department of government. Imagine the emails from the Bureau of Creepy White Roses: “Don’t scramble the jet fighters for the bunker bombing yet… we don’t have enough roses! We used too many on the massacre at District 12!” It’s best not to over-analyze it, but just to sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course the ride would be more enjoyable, if the supporting characters were more than one-dimensional shiny accessories on Katniss’s perfectly tailored battle gown. The familiar faces of Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) Primrose Everdeen (Willow Shields) and of course, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) help to link this chapter to the larger narrative and story arc, but they are not given the time or range needed to lift Mockingjay from its depressive doldrums. Ultimately, the failing of Mockingjay is how closely it zooms in (to the exclusion of the rest of the cast and the story itself) on Katniss and her emotional rollercoaster as Panem’s reluctant and distraught female Messiah figure. She is an icon and symbol, not only for “the rebellion” but also for how many a young person envisions themselves: the center of the world’s attention, and the desire of numerous attractive and fawning love interests. Perhaps Mockingjay’s self-absorbed short-comings can best be summed up by the adoring sentiment of Katniss’s personal designer and attendant, fashionista and aesthete Effie Trinket, (played fabulously by Elizabeth Banks) who upon seeing Katniss’s new outfit, declares “they’ll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.”
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 22:13:42 +0000
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