The Claw

The third installment in the epic young adult franchise, the Hunger Games, was released in late November to theatres full of avid fans. “Mockingjay Part I” has a simple, yet elegant plot. The Hunger Games series takes place in the nation of Panem, risen from the ashes of a war over resources. ashes, Divided into thirteen districts led by an enormous city-state Capitol, the citizens of Panem carve out a harsh life in what was formerly the United States. After a failed revolution, the Capitol takes complete control of all of the districts and demands a tribute of two randomly selected teenagers from each district to fight in their gladiatorial hunger games.

Many SLV students are followers of the Hunger Games Trilogy. Junior Desiree Brown said, “…the trailer made the movie look really good; I’d love to see it.” At the end of the day the books were enjoyed by many, but many readers found the last book in the trilogy to be the weakest link.The movie is no exception to this. While it is a well made film which sticks to the storyline and engages audiences, it lacks the environment of sudden death scenes found in the previous movies. This edge-of-your-seat atmosphere was what many believe made the previous two movies so successful. If you’re coming in looking for an exciting and violent action film, you’ll be disappointed. This first part in this two-part conclusion to the series focuses on the political and technical aspects of the revolution while emphasizing the trauma experienced by the victims of the Capitol.

With fairly good camera work, this film changes it up a bit by bringing the viewer into the action. Through bobbing motions as characters run, and strange but realistically angled shots, the audience gets to experience the action as if they were there. The camera work is complemented by a big budget, and with it, large, detailed sets.

The soundtrack is reused from the first two films; but gets the job done. Hearing the vaguely familiar tunes added to the atmosphere. The gunshots have a very realistic pop, bang, bass, echo quality that give it the most realistic gunfire in many past films. Advanced prototype weapons used as props, (MTAR-21, G36c) give the film a level of reality that it would have lacked had it strayed too far into science-fiction. While this may seem trivial, there are scenes as long as ten minutes where all you see is people sneaking around with guns and shooting. There is plenty of shooting; civilians get shot, Capitol soldiers get shot, gunfire is everywhere. Partially because of this, this movie is skirting the lines of its PG-13 rating. It shows charred corpses, frozen in screams of agony, limbs being torn off after explosions, a hospital being bombed, implied brutal torture, and the debatable glorification of Morphine, during the many scenes in which all of the trouble of the world melt away with use of the drug, with no consequences

All in all, is it a bad movie? No. But it is the weakest of the trilogy, and, inspite of being one of the biggest releases of the year, it still falls short of the other two films in reviews and ticket sales. The general consensus of the school, is that the movie offers plenty of action, plenty of drama, but some people are concerned that the pain that the main character suffers, and the romance throughout the film would get too big of a focus; rather than explosions and the inner workings of District 13.

By: Jonathan Rose