Apparently while I wasn’t paying attention (i.e. during the second installment of the Hunger Games film trilogy, which I failed to view) Katniss has destroyed the very Games that put her, her buddies and her lumpen no-necked boyfriend Peeta in such deep owl pucky. But at any rate, Mockingjay Part I opens with a glassy-eyed Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) along with her mother and sister living in a giant silo community called District 13 many many levels underground. Somewhere, far away, the malicious leader of all this mischief, Snow (Donald Sutherland) is still wearing white Nehru jackets and wringing his hands like the Roman dictator upon which his character is styled. Donald Sutherland began life as an actor playing smug, cloying smart alecks (M.A.S.H., etc) and he’s never stopped.
I figure I had to watch this phenomenon if I wanted to crystallize my growing insight into the Millennial mind set. Don’t get me wrong. I certainly applaud the actress in Lawrence as much as the next aging girl. But at a certain point in Mockingjay I found myself wincing. Katniss isn’t simply a tough action heroine. She’s the Messiah. And all of the survivors of the Game strategy, and the insuing wars, are her followers. Her true believers. (But Joan of Arc, she ain’t.)
Katniss is surrounded by tough, strong, loyal followers—especially one named Gale (Liam Hemsworth) who was with her back in the beginning, when she was chosen for the Games.
But for some reason, she can’t get any romantic feelings for this sensitive, stalwart guy who loves her—and instead moons about the woefully unappealing and dim Peeta, played by a woefully unappealing and dim non-actor named Josh Hutcherson. Double ugh!
Perhaps we should show a bit of respect to any film that happened to be the last picture show in which Philip Seymour Hoffman acted. Or in which Julianne Moore stars as the President of District 13 and the revolution. Or in which Woody Harrelson does not play a stoned drunk.
But it’s just not enough.
I have to take it on faith (!) that the books upon which this trilogy is based are ripping good yarns, but I also have to suspect that either there actually was no director on the set for Mockingjay, or that Francis Lawrence (perhaps Jennifer’s uncle?) is actually a day trader who decided he wanted to buy himself a directing gig. You know, as something to do.
Seriously. You can practically see the cue cards as grown adults appear to read script lines on camera and not very well at that.
Worse. Jennifer Lawrence, unaccountably blimbed up and cow-eyed, appears not to comprehend either motivation or emotional insight. She is awful. She is bovine and awful. Her technique in this film is pretty much limited to school-girlish screaming and looking upward toward the heavens. Oh, and she keeps her mouth open a lot as if to convey shock and more shock.
No messiah worth her rosary beads would act with so wooden an affect. And for the record, Phil isn’t very good here. Harrelson acts the shorts off the late great Hoffman. Yes. THAT’s how tone-deaf this film is.But back to the shocking realization that this film supports and encourages Millennial Messiah worship. The film aims its propogandistic message directly at the listless secular humanism and anchorless family backgrounds of many of today’s 15-21-year-olds. They see Katniss and they kneel, they raise their arms in a true believer salute. They clearly long for something to believe in. Who doesn’t? How about…..themselves!!!?
Wait! Where have we seen that gesture before? Hmm, this could be exactly how the National Socialist Party began back in 1930. A world-wide depression, major unemployment, no job prospects, suppressed sexuality, diminished educational standards, and the desperate need to believe in The One.
Yeah.
