10 Years Later, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 Remains a Unique and Depressing Blockbuster
The penultimate chapter in The Hunger Games franchise has aged very well in the last decade, and it's actually one of the most underrated blockbusters in recent memory
When it comes to The Hunger Games franchise, most people agree that the second movie, Catching Fire, is the best one. This movie had a new director, Francis Laurence, who gave the franchise a whole new and prestigious look, and it also got raved reviews and grossed over 860 million dollars, making it the highest grossing Lionsgate movie.
While I agree with them, I do think that Mockingjay: Part 1 is severely underrated. This is a movie that you rarely see today – a slow big-budget movie with tons of trauma, politics, and above all, how to control the audience with the media and propaganda.
And it’s fantastic.
Yes, it’s only the first part of the book, and while I know lots of people say that the studio shouldn’t have split that book into two movies, I think that the problem with this split is the second movie, not this one. This movie is such a great set up for the finale, and unfortunately the finale didn’t quite deliver (although I still think it’s pretty solid).
It takes its time to show Katniss’s trauma, her emotions, her tragedy. In this movie you can see how the two sides (The Districts and the Capitol) are using the media as the main “battlefield” of the war. It’s dark, gritty and complicated, and above all, realistic.
Unlike the book, we get to see other point-of-views from other districts, and it’s refreshing. I think this is one of the reasons why everyone (including myself) were so disappointed from the finale: We expected it to show other people and places during the war, like in this movie, but it didn’t.
Like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, this movie is very different from its predecessors – you don’t have lots of action, and it’s more of a drama and politics, but I love it (not to mention that Harry Potter was able to craft a fantastic finale).
The cast of this movie is amazing, especially Jennifer Laurence, Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks. Can you believe that both Mahershala Ali and Jeffrey Wright were in this movie?
Above all, the directing of Francis Lawrence is phenomenal. He is the “David Yates” of this franchise, having directed all of the movies except the first one.
The same can be said about the dark and realistic cinematography from Jo Willems and the mesmerizing soundtrack from James Newton Howard. Oh, and this movie has one of the best, if not the best, scene in the entire franchise – the iconic Hanging Tree song.
The movie was still a massive success. It got solid reviews and grossed over 750 million dollars, a fantastic result for such a unique blockbuster.
Let’s see how The Hunger Games: Sunrise of the Reaping will do in 2026.