Katnis Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), an emotional mess after two grueling Hunger Games, opens her eyes in a hospital at the start of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1, one of the grimmer dystopian movies in a decade lousy with them. Seriously, stuff this bleak used to be in German or Japanese, but now it’s lapped up by American kids who’ve finally gotten the message that whatever’s coming isn’t good. After nightmares and nightmares-within-nightmares,
Katniss heaves herself from her bed and trudges through the film on the brink of tears. She’s angry that the rebels abandoned her true love, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), in the fascist capital; angry that she’s being used as a propaganda tool by the people she’s angry at; and angry that she has to bargain with the chilly rebel president (Julianne Moore behind a sheet of white hair), who seems almost as much of a totalitarian creep as the wicked president (Donald Sutherland) who just incinerated her home district and more than 90 percent of its population.
The film ends at the apex of anguish:
Thanks, Lionsgate, for cleaving Suzanne Collins’s third book in twain to maximize your already staggering profits. Add to that the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman — reminding you yet again that the poor bastard went out at the peak of his talent — and it’s tough to summon up the strength to say “See it anyway. It’s really good.”
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