I think, on some level, this is a superior film to the previous entry. I mean, for one thing, all that previous film did was set things up. This (sort of) knocks them down. I will say that, as far as these things go, this series is a little less politically naive – I stress “a little” as this is still an extremely naive view of the world – than even some works for adults (i.e. in this series the revolution eats its children, which is often not true in stuff like this). But that doesn’t excuse the laziness of the writing.

Perhaps the best example I can think of in terms of the lazy writing is how Katniss consistently wakes up in hospitals. Three times in this film. If you’re going to have your character wake up in a hospital, it should happen once, unless it is a running gag. (And this humourless series has no running gags…) It’s hard for me to know whether or not this problem is in the books or in just the adaptation, but it’s a bizarre, repetitive thing that removes her from the action (on purpose). But there are worse examples – I mean there’s just lots of walking in this film, encountering booby traps. The closest thing we get to character development is two boys talking about kissing.

It’s still moderately entertaining for what it is.

5/10

• Directed by Francis Lawrence
• Produced by Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik
• Screenplay by Peter Craig, Danny Strong Based on Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
• Starring:
  • Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
  • Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark
  • Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne
  • Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy
  • Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket
  • Julianne Moore as President Alma Coin
  • Donald Sutherland as President Coriolanus Snow
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch Heavensbee
  • Willow Shields as Primrose Everdeen
  • Sam Claflin as Finnick Odair
  • Natalie Dormer as Cressida
  • Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman
  • Jena Malone as Johanna Mason
  • Jeffrey Wright as Beetee Latier
  • Mahershala Ali as Boggs
  • Wes Chatham as Castor
  • Michelle Forbes as Lieutenant Jackson
  • Elden Henson as Pollux
  • Patina Miller as Commander Paylor
  • Evan Ross as Messalla
  • Stef Dawson as Annie Cresta
  • Paula Malcomson as Mrs. Everdeen
  • Meta Golding as Enobaria
  • Gwendoline Christie as Commander Lyme
  • Omid Abtahi as Homes
  • Eugenie Bondurant as Tigris
  • Misty and Kim Ormiston as Leeg 1 and Leeg 2
  • Joe Chrest as Mitchell
  • Sarita Choudhury as Egeria
  • Robert Knepper as Antonius
  • Theodore and Bear Lawrence as the Everdeen/Mellark children
• Music by James Newton Howard
• Cinematography by Jo Willems
• Edited by Alan Edward Bell, Mark Yoshikawa
• Production companies: Color Force, Studio Babelsberg
• Distributed by Lionsgate Films
• Release date: November 4, 2015
• Running time: 137 minutes
• Country: United States
• Language: English
• Budget: $160 million
• Box office: $653.4 million