Movie Review: Mockingjay Part 1

December 15, 2014     erinbook     Page to Screen

Strangely I wasn’t excited to see this movie. I hated the book, I thought it was lazy and boring and the end a big mess. But a fellow blogger wanted to see it and I figured why not? After all, the films have done a great job adapting the series and maybe they would fix what I found so lacking.

I still don’t really get the point of splitting the movies into two but whatever. They put in enough content to make part one work at least. They stopped the first part exactly where I thought they would. I’m getting really good and predicting this, what does that say about the last movie in book adaptations series? Stop splitting them unless they need it!

I was happy to find that I wasn’t as bored during this movie as I was in the first half of the book. I heard someone say that part one is just “Katniss learns to vlog and saves a cat” which is both funny and accurate, though she does do a lot more than that. However, the film was very good at keeping the tension that the book loses. You’re always waiting for the last shoe to drop instead of shuffling along.

They also did a long of character work that the book sort of glosses over. President Coin actually becomes a bit sympathetic and, dare I say, likable in the film. Which will make film two all the more intense I’m sure. They get a lot deeper into how the games and Peeta have affected Katniss mentally, which is what I wanted in the book and did not get. But the biggest feat they managed was getting me to feel bad for Peeta. I have always said that Peeta is a damsel in distress throughout all three books and by book three I was extremely annoyed with him. But film Peeta has managed to smooth that out and make it much less annoying, allowing me to feel bad for the guy. Even if I think Gale has his crap together much better.

For a book that I would have given a 2.5 nuts if I had been blogging then, this was a much better film than I expected it to be. In fact I actually enjoyed it! This is a great season for films, I’ve seen 3 great movies this month already, now on to The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies.

4 Nuts
 
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4 responses to “Movie Review: Mockingjay Part 1

  1. I hated the third book too lol. The movie was surprisingly good though. I definitely agree that Coin turned out to actually be likeable and there's Peeta 🙁 I seriously wonder how the second part is going to play out. I don't think there's all that much left to see…..

  2. I liked the part one movie, but I am skeptical about how they are going to make part two. I have heard several rumors that the producers are planning on making major changes to the script. But it might be for the better, because there were quite a few things about the book that I did not like. I think the beginning of the book was too slow, but then the ending was too fast. I felt like I was being thrown into a mess of death and destruction. The ending did not really satisfy me either. Great post!

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