Movie Review: ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1’ Opens

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Manhola Dargis

Dressed in all-white garb in a white room, Peeta Mallark (Josh Hutcherson) stands dutifully by the side of a sanguine President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who addresses the people of Panem from a white throne.

HOLLYWOOD---“Mockingjay Part 1” is indisputably a war movie, from tearful start to unsettling end. Its director is Francis Lawrence, who did the honors in the second one, and he does a serviceable job again of pulling the parts together. If you haven’t seen the earlier movies, you may get a little lost; it doesn’t matter. If you’ve watched them and forgotten certain details, it also doesn’t matter. “Mockingjay Part 1” is streamlined, blunt and easy. The Capitol, the base of Panem power, is after Katniss, who is squirreled away in a part of the country, District 13, once thought to have been destroyed. Led by President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore, equal parts iron and silk), District 13 is now leading the charge against the Capitol. [link]

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). War violence and torture.