The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 Film Review

With a star studded cast, part one of the third installment of The Hunger Games trilogy lives up to the hype.

When we last saw Jennifer Lawrence on screen as the teenage heroine Katniss Everdeen, she had just awoken from her rescue after the quarter-quell arena chaos.  Katniss quickly found out, as our second film Catching Fire draws to a close, that district 12, her home, was firebombed by the Capital. Now, she is en route to the fabled district 13 which was thought to have been destroyed by the Capital 75 years ago.  Mockingjay part 1 picks up right where our story left off.  Katniss is on the mend and has been reunited in district 13 with her family and friends from district 12.  Soon our heroine is swept up into the revolution by the man who designed the quarter-quell games and engineered her escape, Plutarch Heavensbee played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and the President of district 13 Alma Coin played by Julianne Moore.  Coin and Heavensbee are hatching a plan to use Katniss, or rather the “girl on fire”, as the face of the revolution.  After some convincing, Katniss agrees to help in order to end the tyranny of the maniacal President Snow played by Donald Sutherland. As Katniss begins filming promos and propaganda for the revolution, skipping from war zones to hospitals acting like a sort of USO celebrity meant to unite the troops, we begin to see the real destruction being done on the front.  As the rebels begin airing her promos on TV we get a peek at the face of the Capital, Peeta Mellark played by Josh Hutcherson.  Peeta, now brainwashed perhaps, and Katniss end up facing off over the airwaves in a propaganda-style war-of-words that would make any politician alive today blush.  The revolution continues to rage on and become more personal than ever for Katniss as we go on this emotional voyage with the girl on fire.

As someone who has read the entire series of books, and enjoyed the first two films, I wasn't sure if I would like this newest addition to the series.  Nearly everyone I have discussed the book series with views Mockingjay as the weakest of the trilogy.  It has always seemed to me that Suzanne Collins wrote a great couple of novels and then her publisher wanted a third book so she tacked Mockingjay onto the series to make a trilogy.  Adding to that, I also wasn't happy that Lionsgate decided to split this book into two films.  Although I was a bit pessimistic about this film going in, I think Mockingjay was well done.  This series has really done a great job of taking a young adult (YA) novel series and adding in great acting.  By casting the young talent of Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, & Liam Hemsworth and combining them with Woody Harrleson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, and of course Stanley Tucci, the acting is excellent in this film.  Each actor provides the depth needed for their character and even allow the audience a few laughs in this film with such incredibly intense subject matter.  

With good source material, a well written screen adaptation of that material, excellent acting, and of course likable (or hateable) characters, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 offers up everything we have come to expect and love about this series.  I give this film a 4 out of 5 stars.  Make sure to watch the first two films before seeing Mockingjay.  If you do that, you will  definitely enjoy this well made dystopian series.  If you get really ambitious, you should read the books as well.  They are a quick read and very difficult to put down. Enjoy!

Interstellar Review

Matthew McConaughey scored big with last year's film Dallas Buyers Club, but can he back up that Oscar winning performance with another masterful one? The short answer is, yes.

In the new film Interstellar, McConaughey plays Cooper, a former engineer and pilot for NASA who has been forced, along with much of the world, to resort to farming.  In this Malthusian-like bleak future, the Earth has run out of resources and the food supply has dwindled due to major blights affecting crops world wide.  Populations have plummeted and we come to find out that the Earth is dying. In order to save human kind NASA has secretly been conducting a mission to find a new home planet suitable for humans.  Aiding this search was the discovery of a worm hole near Saturn that someone or something placed there to help save the human race. McConaughey faces the terribly difficult decision to either stay with his children on our dying planet and wait for death or leave his family behind, perhaps never seeing them again, in hopes of  discovering a new planet for his family and mankind.  Ultimately for the good of his family he chooses to search for the new planet.  He and his crew, which includes Anne Hathaway as Brand and Wes Bentley as Doyle, head through the wormhole and into deep space in hopes of saving humankind.  

This film is done brilliantly with a well written story by writer and director Christopher Nolan as well as great acting from McConaughey, Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain as McConaughey's grown up daughter Murph.  Although it is possible this film won't receive the same buzz and award season recognition as other films due to its sci-fi nature, McConaughey's role playing a father and the emotions he went through from leaving his kids behind to the heartbreaking scene of him watching them grow up via space transmission evoked major emotions on screen and with the audience.  McConaughey's portrayal of Cooper leaves me no doubt that he is one of the best actors in Hollywood today.   In addition to McConaughey, this star studded cast does an amazing job of acting.  With such big names as John Lithgow, Michael Caine, and Matt Damon, the film has plenty of big name acting talent and it shows through on screen.  

Although the film has a rather bleak outlook of our possible future on Earth, the tag line of the movie does indeed offer a glimmer of hope.  "Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here." Indeed we will find a way to endure.  The message of this film resonates at a time when we face major issues across the globe and many people foresee widespread food and resource shortages in our future.  This well written story hits close to home while being an original story at a time when reboots and sequels dominate the box office.  I give this film a resounding 5 out of 5 stars and recommend you see this film with some Kleenex if you are a parent.