2.5 stars (out of 5)
Like the first installment of the also split-in-half Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, this third of four HG epics suffers from the fact that not much really happens, that it all feels like scene-setting for next year’s Part 2, and that, no matter what the title might suggest, there are no Games – just lots of yakking and overacting.
The unstoppable Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens from a traumatic slumber in an abrupt opening sequence, and straight away she starts blubbering over the dreary and presumed-dead Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). She’s then reunited with many of the surviving sorts from the previous films, all of whom sit around looking serious and pontificating their way through loads of humourless dialogue while going on about how she’s a perfect ‘Mockingjay’, a symbol of revolution. There’s a new character, District 13 President and rebel leader Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), as well as Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth), Finick Odair (Sam Claflin), Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), the wig-free ‘political refugee’ Effie Trinket (hamming Elizabeth Banks) and, of course, Plutarch Heavensbee (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose unfinished performance was fiddled with). They’re quite a bunch, and they’re given oodles of time to ramble on about the rising of the Districts against the evil Capitol, where President Snow (leering Donald Sutherland) orders the rebels crushed in those silky senior tones. And those around Katniss look set to die, including new characters like Cressida (Natalie Dormer), who directs propaganda films wherein Katniss calls for the unification of all against the Empire, sorry, Capitol, in mighty action highlights that we’ll mostly have to wait until Part 2 to actually see.
Dull as dystopian dishwater, and still happily stealing plot points from 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, Doctor Who, Mad Max, World War 2 dramas and Star Wars (duh!), this latest filming of Suzanne Collins’ book series is graced by the first humdrum performance by Lawrence. While she was the best thing about the previous efforts, she looks bored here, and as there are no damn Games, she’s got nothing much to do besides agonise about Peeta, and ensure that this Mockingjay is pretty much for the birds.
I Wake Up Screening 