I have been a fan of this series ever since I was in the eighth grade and read the first book. I enjoyed the past two movies in the series, though I didn’t love them. This one, however, I can say that I did love. It did have a few problems, however. Let’s talk about those first and get them out of the way, shall we?

The most obvious problem is there are quite a few needless scenes that were probably only added in to make the movie longer. The movie would have benefitted from being one movie, not two. There were a few characters that weren’t fleshed out enough, I believe. It’s particularly irksome when the movie ends up being shorter than the other ones, is filled with needless padding, and yet doesn’t take time to develop some supporting characters. For example, one of my favorite characters from the books was Finnick Odair. Granted he didn’t do much in the first part of the last book, but he did even less in this movie. Gale also could have done more, there were definitely more scenes with him in the book. It’s kind of baffling when you fill the movie with padding that wasn’t in the book and get rid of the important points that weren’t in the book.

What about the things I did enjoy? Well, I did enjoy the acting, for the most part. Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence give their best performances as Peeta and Katniss in this movie. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman was also fantastic as Plutarch Heavensbee. Donald Sutherland was as menacing as ever in his role of President Snow, and newcomer Julianne Moore did a great job as Alma Coin.
I liked the plot of this movie as well. I find it kind of bizarre, however, that the movie shows that using media to manipulate people is wrong. However, the book has been split into two movies, and is manipulating the public to make more money. The second part comes out next November. It’s contrary to everything the film is about, when you think about it.

Overall, however, I thought this was a thoroughly enjoyable film and the best in the series so far. Definitely give it a watch. 9.5/10.

What did you think of the movie? Leave a comment below!