The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I Review

The first movie series to be based on books that had the final book split into two movies was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This made a lot of sense because there was a lot of story to cover in that last book. Then the Twilight saga split their last book into two movies. This made no sense at all because nothing had happened in any of the previous movies; it was clearly a marketing ploy to milk the Twilight brand for all the money the studios could. We could also accuse The Hobbit movies of doing this, but that's a discussion for another time. The Hunger Games have been very successful as future dystopian survival stories which a lot of other books and movies have failed to imitate. But did The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I (2014) really need to be divided into two parts?

Following the destruction of the last Hunger Games event, a few of the tributes managed to escape as the oppressive Capitol tried to intervene. Among the escapees were Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin), and Beetee (Jeffery Wright). They are joined by Katniss's friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and other refugees from their home in District 12 and end up in the believe-to-be-destroyed District 13. Under the leadership of President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and the advice of her friends, Katniss agrees to become the "Mockingjay," the symbol of the rebellion for the districts of Panem to overthrow The Capitol. Katniss is prepped and made over to inspire others for the rebellion, but her thoughts are with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) and his safety while being trapped by The Capitol.

So, The Hunger Games was a pretty good solid movie with lots of action, some good characters, and an interesting story about a televised death match. Catching Fire did a similar thing and took everything to the next level; bigger action, higher stakes, and more complexity. Mockingjay part I went in a totally different direction; there's no Hunger Games whatsoever. The Hunger Games event is over, but the fight rages on in a different arena. Mockingjay is more about the political battle going on between The Capitol and the rebels. The Capitol is producing televised propaganda ads to belittle and dismiss the rebels as nothing but troublemakers. District 13 has been waiting for an opportunity like this for decades; now they have a symbol of hope in Katniss to bring the Districts together and fight against their oppressors. So they make their own propaganda ads featuring Katniss showing how evil and corrupt The Capitol is. It's like a political chess match played out through the media. We get to see how difficult it is to run a rebellion and the impact that media can have on a nation, for good or bad.

At the same time, it's mostly a movie about shooting television ads. While that is interesting, it gets dull. There is a lot of down time, which slows the pacing of the movie. The action scenes are fantastic! I loved seeing Katniss and Gale fighting Capitol airships, but much of the movie is rather slow paced. On top of that we get a whole bunch of new characters thrown at us, but apart from Katniss few of them are developed enough. There's a great action sequence featuring Gale. It was an exciting and tense scene, but this being the third movie Gale has appeared in and I still don't have much of a feel for who this character is. If I had, it would have made the scene all the more tense and would have made me want Gale to survive even more. As it is, Katniss gets most of the development and depth of character at the expense of the significantly expanded cast.

The Hunger Games books are told from Katniss's perspective, and something the movies have done is show us events that Katniss did not witness and thus was unable to narrate. In Mockingjay, we get to see acts of rebellion among the Districts as a result of the rebels' propaganda. Each District specializes in a particular industry, and we see them use the skills associated with that industry to fight against The Capitol's presence in a given District. We see guerilla war acts in District 7 who specialize in lumber and District 5 whose industry is electrical power. When these scenes start you know the District is about to fight back, but how they actually do it totally blew away my wildest expectations. These extra scenes were outside the canon of the books, but were creative and pertinent to the story.

Since Mockingjay is divided into two parts it doesn't have a satisfactory ending. What we get here is good, but not great, and once things really start getting interesting, the closing credits start rolling. It's like standing in line and anticipating an awesome rollercoaster ride, getting buckled in and ready to go, only to have to be taken out and told to wait for the next train. It's kind of a disappointment and almost feels like a bait-and-switch. Having read the books, I am of the opinion that of all the books the third one had the least amount of storyline, so dividing it up into  two-parts seems silly. But there's not much we can do except wait for Mockingjay part II.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I was good. It wasn't as good or exciting as the previous two movies, but it was satisfying enough, given the frustrating fact that we don't have a conclusion at the end. Mockingjay revs up our anticipation for the series' grand finale. It's loaded with outstanding, solid performances from the cast, even those who don't get much screen time; it's packed with intriguing, smart political subtext; but the movie comes up short on the action front, though what action scenes we are privileged to see are excellent. I don't think the story justifies a two-part set of movies, but I'm still psyched to see Mockingjay part II. If you're a fan of The Hunger Games this is worth seeing in theaters. But since this movie revs you up and leaves you hanging, you might want to just wait for this on home video and watch it once part II is in theaters so you aren't waiting around for the rest of the movie.

What are some of your expectations for Mockingjay part II? Comment below and tell me about it (no spoilers, though)!

Non-Stop Movie Review

It's true that not all of Liam Neeson's movies have been good, but he's the sort of actor who has such a powerful presence that he effectively makes movies better when he is in them. Clash of the Titans for example was pretty bad, but seeing Neeson as Zeus and hearing his line "Release the Kraken!" made the whole thing worth it. He's very good in action movies, and while Non-Stop (2014) wasn't the greatest movie, it was made much better because Neeson is in it.

Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a former cop who took to drinking to cope with his daughter's death. Now working as an air marshal, he boards a transcontinental flight from London to New York. Once the plane is over the Atlantic Ocean, Marks gets mysterious texts on his secured network phone demanding that he instructs the government to transfer 150 million dollars to an off-shore account. Until he secures the money, a passenger on his flight will be killed every 20 minutes. He fails to get help from his fellow air marshal (Anson Mount), he enlists the aid of a passenger Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) and flight attendant Nancy Hoffman (Michelle Dockery) to help pinpoint the who is the threat. As the situation becomes more complicated and Marks resorts to more unorthodox measures, passengers begin to suspect that he is the one hijacking the plane.

Liam Neeson is of course great in this movie. His delivery is spot on, his presence on screen is powerful, and his accent is as endearing as ever. Neeson brings enormous conviction to his late-career action roles. He's a fairly large person and moves his big body through the confined spaces of the airplane with so much power you'd might expect to see him rip out the seats. I have no doubt that delivering his line (shown in the trailers) "I'm not hijacking this plane. I'm trying to save it!" is going to go down in Neeson History like so many of his other memorable and dramatic lines.

On the other hand, most of the other cast members were wasted on what is otherwise a mediocre script. Julianne Moore is a great actress who has been in several outstanding films; that said, why give her such a weak role that could have been played by just about anyone? Her role would have been a perfect shot at a big for an up and coming actress. The same could have been said of most of the rest of the cast as well. In fact, Lupita Nyong had a small bit role as a flight attendant, even after winning an Academy Award for 12 Years a Slave. She IS an up and coming actress; Non-Stop is in fact her only other movie role. It still seems like her remarkable skills were wasted on a bit role here.

The story is pretty good for a mystery-thriller. Having a death threats issued on an public airplane is pretty scary. The idea of an airplane hijacking after all the security measures that started after 9/11 is all the more unsettling. The plot devices used in Non-Stop resonate with viewers pretty well, which makes for an interesting movie.

The movie is not without its flaws, though. My biggest pet peeve with "whodunnit" sort of stories is when we are given virtually no hints as to who has actually done it. When we finally get the big reveal at the end, it's completely out of nowhere and there's no way that we could have reached the same conclusion on our own. There's a brawl between Marks and another passenger in one of the airplane's lavatories; I don't see how anyone the size of Liam Neeson could even fit into one of those lavatories, let alone fight with someone else inside of one. It's a tense scene, but a bit difficult to believe. One of the killings remains unexplained. We understand clearly how it happened, but not by whom or when. In fact, this one murder is developed in such a way that there is effectively no way it could have happened, but the movie quickly moves on to other plot twists and hopes we didn't catch that detail.

Non-Stop is a fun movie that was made even better by Liam Neeson doing what he does best: glaring and growling through tight spots and effectively making the movie less preposterous by his mere presence. He elevates an otherwise B-movie thriller into a decent enough tense action movie. The acting is good, even if the material was occasionally sub-par. The action was great and makes for tense movie. The ideas thrown around by the plot are verisimilar and will likely strike a chord with audiences.  I enjoyed Non-Stop for what it was. I think it's worth seeing, but worth waiting for on DVD. It didn't seem to gain much by being on the big screen. It might even be worth owning an inexpensive copy of to pull out on occasion for a fun movie night that doesn't require a whole lot of thought and effort to watch.

What is your favorite Liam Neeson role? Comment below and tell me all about it!