So I waited until the final showing, on the final day, of its run at my local multiplex before venturing out to see "Mockingjay Part 1'. That should give you some idea of how motivated I was to cross it off my "must see" list. Here's why - despite having enjoyed the first two films I just kind of presumed it would be a stodgy, turgid, bore of a movie; the middle part of a pudding that you no longer want to eat; an elongated bit of a filler before the final act; deliberately and obviously designed to stretch out the franchise in order to make the maximum dollar from teenage girls.
It's worse than that.
It is without a doubt one of the slowest, most aggravating and pointless films I've ever had the mis-pleasure of sitting through. It's not a bad film in terms of craftsmanship. But in terms of intent; in terms of enjoyment it's fucking awful. Seriously, if I'd have had a Mockingjay pin on me I would have been grinding it into my palm like Harry Palmer in 'The Ipcress File', just in case I lost all sense of my self to the ongoing torture of it all.
I don't mind that it doesn't work as a film in its own right and plays like an episode of a tv show that you've resumed watching after a year's break and now really don't care about. I expected that. I do mind that it has little plot structure - it is all middle - but I can live with it. What I really didn't expect was that it would be so mind numbingly dull. It surely has to be the talkiest film ever marketed at teens. But it's just blah, blah exposition talk all the way through. Show, don't tell is the mantra of screenplay writing. This is all tell, tell, tell until you get sick of hearing it.
"Katniss isn't ready to lead the revolution", Katniss witnesses a war atrocity, "Katniss is now ready to lead the revolution", the revolution gets under way but is almost suppressed, Katniss is determined to save Peeta's life, Peeta is rescued, Peeta attacks Katniss. There you are - seven scenes that could be whizzed through in a half hour; fifty minutes tops. But no, what you get is people standing around in front of video screens saying stuff like - "we are now going to disable their shields and block their broadcast" like it's a bad episode of Knight Rider or something.
Look, I think Jennifer Lawrence is a great actress but here she spends most of her time looking bewildered. Now, you could say that this is a clever and evocative portrayal of post traumatic stress disorder....and.....you could say that it is the definitive depiction of a sullen, gormless, teenager....or...you could say that it looks like she just doesn't know where her character is emotionally from scene to scene. Here, she has two expressions - mouth open and mouth closed. I blame it on the director. His (because why would you choose a female director for something that has connected with teen girls across the globe) CV includes Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez videos before moving on to the dizzy heights of everyone's favourite movies - 'I Am Legend' and 'Constantine'. Showing her face in big close up for the entire running time is the approach he takes and by the end it's so overdone you could despair. He can't even coax any interesting moments from Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson or Julianne Moore and worst of all (made sour for being one of his last roles) Philip Seymour Hoffman looks old, looks ill and looks completely out of it. His eyelids still do more than anyone else in this film.
But here's the real kicker, the thing I really hated about this film was that underneath all of this slow burning drudgery, is that there is still a lot of really strong, interesting ideas waiting to be explored. The series as a whole has the theme of rebellion against an autocratic centre and the cost of that on a personal level. This part of the saga should be exploring how rebellion is promoted, propagated and, mythologised whilst showing the pros and cons of constructing a legend around a central figure. Instead, here's Jennifer Lawrence staring into the distance, or walking down a corridor, or looking really, really sad. For a film about unconformity it is tediously, distressingly conformist in all the worst ways.
Can't wait for Part 2 !
No comments:
Post a Comment