
Flicks, Steve Newall
Departing from the battle royale format of the two previous Hunger Games instalments, Mockingjay – Part 1 plunges the franchise into deeper terrain. Figuratively, with the pic continuing Katniss Everdeen’s trauma-fuelled mental disintegration and its subject matter becoming bleaker and more violent, as well as the literally underground setting in which much of Mockingjay’s talk of revolution plays out. Against this deep bunker backdrop the cast spend a lot of time sporting unflattering jumpsuits and talking about what is to come in the next chapter, truncated storytelling that hampers this working as a standalone pic.
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