The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 shines with star power

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      The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1

      Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Sutherland. Rated PG.

      Oh my God, what have they done to Peeta? That glazed and vaguely hapless expression he sported in the first two Hunger Games movies? It’s even worse this time around, as he sits there all teary-eyed telling the people of Panem to put down their revolutionary weapons. You might remember that Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) was being secretly manoeuvred into rebel action at the end of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. She wakes up in the underground District 13 in this sequel (or prequel to Mockingjay—Part 2, if you like), while Peeta has surfaced in the Capitol stumping for evil President Donald Sutherland, a man who’s willing to bomb a hospital to hell and back just because he can, the fucker.

      Peeta remains the one really jarring misstep in this generally fabulous sequel to last year’s effort. If you’re a 47-year-old dude who’s never going to read the books, then it’s getting even harder to wrap your head around Katniss’s loyalty to this trembly-browed, collaborating simp, although you can’t blame director Francis Lawrence for being stuck with Josh Hutcherson. In any event, everything else about Mockingjay—Part 1 is a blast, with J-Law once again giving a tough centre to the series’ increasingly well-realized world.

      They’ve also beefed up the star power again. Julianne Moore comes on as District 13’s hard-knockered President Coin, who’s also the de facto leader of the rebellion. Along with Plutarch Heavensbee (a returning Philip Seymour Hoffman), Iron Tits is determined to mobilize all of Panem’s revolting peasants with a bunch of stirring propaganda commercials featuring Katniss, an idea so daft that it actually swings around and becomes awesome again, especially given the ensuing scenes of Hoffman rolling his eyes at Katniss’s stiff performance down in District 13’s high-tech media bunker. This is a woman who’s never even taken a selfie, let alone starred in a TV commercial or overthrown a brutal dictatorship, so what does he bloody expect?

      As it happens, President Business or whatever he’s called is using Peeta in an emotional battle of wits with Katniss, and he’ll flatten all of Panem and kill everyone in sight to win the argument. The point of a movie like this is to make you think your dysfunctional “democracy” is relatively nice in comparison. It isn’t, but don’t let that spoil the fun.

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