Mockingjay Part I Suzanne Collins

As much as I dislike when movie franchises divide up books to create multiple films, I’m rather happy the Hunger Games final book Mockingjay was given this treatment. There was little that was skipped over, and the inclusion of aspects of the revolution Katniss had no idea about in the book gave a nice glimpse into the world of the Capital and its districts that you wouldn’t ever know about if you hadn’t read the books. The Hunger Games movies have been consistent in trying to keep info dumps and exposition at a minimum. That is really hard to do when in the book you had the ability to read Katniss’ mind to learn what was going on. For the writers to be able to slip those details into conversations while keeping the story from slowing down is really impressive.

There were some details of the book that weren’t included in the movie, but they were mostly things that hadn’t been in any of the other movies, so it would have been odd to include that stuff now. Katniss’ stylists are the main thing I noticed missing but, they weren’t included in the other movies, so it was probably best they stayed out of the story at this point. I also missed Katniss’ recovery after the Games, and missed the potential training montage of her and Gale becoming District 13 soldiers so they could visit the districts.The plot had a few slow moments, but it kept the story moving with the acting, music, and stunning visuals. While Peeta’s retrieval in the book was completely secret until the rescue team got back to district 13, movie Katniss found out about it while it was in the process, which still allowed for us to see how everything went down.

One thing I always liked about the Hunger Games is that it showed that during war, there’s not some face off where the protagonist and antagonist duke it out and everything is done. War is fought with people and the ones leading the war aren’t the ones on the battlefront. This shows in the movie, with Katniss being reluctant to stay out of the fighting and disliking how distant Coin puts herself from the districts she uses like tools to get what she wants.

Mockingjay part I is definitely a movie I would recommend, it sticks to the book's plot, but adds additional details when necessary. It does not disappoint.