Why I'm Not Seeing Mockingjay

If there's nothing else you've learned from this blog, it's that I love going to the movies.  L-O-V-E, love.  My entire DVR is filled with movies, I get three discs at a time from Netflix, I have a library that is, well, mostly, books, but at least 35% movies, and if I go more than two weeks without hitting the theater I get a little stir crazy.  The movies are my life blood, and while I claim I'll see pretty much anything, there are clearly some things that stir me toward a film.  Oscar buzz, stars/directors I like, previous installments I have seen, and if it's part of the bigger pop culture conversation.  Over the past twenty years, I have seen every highest-grossing film with one exception, and aside from Saving Private Ryan (which I wasn't old enough to see) I saw them all in theaters.  I don't enjoy being out of the overall conversation about a movie, and when it is the highest-grossing film of the year and casual moviegoers in my family and friend group are going, I relish it because I have someone to actually talk about the movie with, a definite plus in regard to shared cinematic love.

However, I am not seeing Mockingjay this year in theaters, and have decided to put my foot down despite almost everyone else in America going to the film.  I know that the whole split the final movie thing in two has become standard fare for stretching out movies, trying to get as much money as is humanly possible out of the pictures, but enough is enough.  I was willing to endure this a bit more for Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hobbit (principally because I liked those book series better), but I think if another book series that I love decides to do this, I'll probably skip out on it as well.

The reality is that the last Hunger Games book is not long enough to stretch for two films.  The book is one page shorter, in fact, than Catching Fire, and not much longer than the original Hunger Games.  There isn't enough story there (particularly since the first 100 pages or so are all internal Katniss-whining) to stretch it over two movies, and I think every objective fan will admit that.  There's also something about Panem that doesn't stretch in the same way that Middle Earth and Hogwarts do.  Those magical worlds had A) a lot of other stories by the authors to rely upon and B) in the case of the latter world, a considerably longer book.  Admittedly I think that Deathly Hallows probably would have been fine being a three-hour final movie, and you could have cut a few parts of the film, making it epic, but ultimately fine within one picture (I think it would have actually won an Oscar or two had they gone that route, if we're being honest, rather than remaining a Susan Lucci for eternity), but at least it was gigantic in terms of its size, and could contest that it was much longer than the previous installments.  Additionally, they were willing to fill in and stretch certain aspects of the stories, like the fantastic "Tale of the Three Brothers" animated sequence in the first part, but by-and-large a sharp editor could have made those movies one picture.

I am not going to pass too much judgment on the film (I know someone who refuses to see The Hobbit films despite them being quite good and solid with the critics, but is constantly bemoaning them which reeks of artistic ignorance), as I haven't seen it, but the initial reviews from both professional critics and from people I know who have viewed it all agree that it could easily have been compressed into one movie.  I will say, though, that I'm also tired of seeing the sequels to films that I didn't like.  I am thinking specifically of Despicable Me 2, which I saw in part because my little cousin wanted to go and in part because with that Box Office I was certain I'd see it anyway as part of the OVP (which I was right about!), but also of the other film in the past twenty years I never got around to: Spider-Man 3.  The first two films were fun, though they always felt a teensy bit cheesy for my tastes.  I'm fine with the cheese when it's on a comic book page-I'm decidedly in the Marvel camp of comic book lovers, but when it comes to the films I am decidedly pro-DC, and while Spider-Man 2 was good, it didn't have me clamoring for the sequel, and so when it got blasted by the press, I decided to skip it, and it lounges somewhere on my Netflix list, someday to be seen but I don't feel like I'm missing out in the meantime.

And I feel the same way about Mockingjay.  The first two films were completely underwhelming, in my opinion, and since the source materials continue to be less interesting, that doesn't really help on this front.  I remember watching Catching Fire and thinking, amongst other things, that this has to be the cheapest looking cinematography I have seen in eons from a major motion picture, and how genuinely bland and occasionally bad Josh Hutcherson was in his role (I really want to like him because he's very affable off-screen, but I'm being honest here-he grates when he's actually called upon to act).  Even movie star star pros like Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson cannot sell it if the script doesn't breath, and unlike even the Twilight movies, there isn't enough focus off of the main character (you learn about Jacob, Bella, and Edward, and not just Bella as the films continue, but you never take your eyes off of Katniss) to make you care about any of the ancillary characters.

All of this isn't to say I'll never see the movie (I'll likely Netflix it just to see where they went), but I'm not paying money for it.  At some point the studios have to stop treating the movies like they are television, and if they are going to, they need to do it an interesting and complicated way like, say, Disney is doing with Marvel (the films aren't all great, but the mildly linked pictures, along with the TV shows, are creating a gigantic multi-platform experience that is really bold and worth tracking).  And for me, my foot goes down with Mockingjay.