The Hunger Games, Part 2.5

I finally circled back to this franchise about a young woman brutally exploited by a vicarious-thrillseeking society. And also the character she plays.

So in this third film of this four-film trilogy, we have a couple of new locations. We get to see District 13, which as best I can tell is comprised of a futuristic hospital set; a completely untouched high school cafeteria; the gathering room from Alien 3; a 1980s missile silo; and a big, poorly-lit stairwell. I guess I should clarify that the stairwell is EXTREMELY poorly lit, because most of the film is in fact poorly lit. And oddly edited. And unnecessarily padded. Why did they need to do this?

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So there was one particular scene that I really liked. Or perhaps I should say that I liked the execution of one particular part of one particular scene. When Katniss goes back to District 12, we start with just the hovercraft, so we can't see the ruin around it. Katniss comes out, the hovercraft goes up, and then we get the devastation. I thought that was really cool and demonstrated a thought process about camera and object placement lots of modern directors tend to ignore. Of course, by the end of the film, I had gotten well and truly sick of the "character sees something and then the camera SLOWLY comes around to show us" setup.

What else did I like about it? Well, the adult members of the cast are all on fire. And... um...

Okay, here's what I didn't like:

• Natalie Dormer never takes her clothes off.
• Joanna Mason, the best thing about The Murder Games 2: Murder Harder, is barely in the film. She, also, does not take her clothes off.
• Jennifer Lawrence tells Thor's Brother she expected him to forget the time that Jennifer Lawrence kissed him. I get that this is all fiction, but come on.
• In the totally untouched high-school cafeteria serving as District 13's lunchroom, every single person except Jennifer Lawrence becomes part of a lynch mob when they see Saint Millstone say some lines he was obviously coerced into saying. 
• The all-oppressive Evil Empire left Jennifer Lawrence's home intact when they firebombed her town. They even left all her important mementos and her mother's alchemy ingredients.
• In a forest, a great many rebels get gunned down to wipe out a single platoon of stormtroopers. This is presented as a victory, instead of a senseless and tragic loss of human life that actually adds weight to St. Millstone's (coerced) plea for peace.
• Jennifer Lawrence, against the orders of her superiors, shoots down a bomber, which crashes into a hospital. Every death is blamed on President Evil, not Jennifer Lawrence.
• The above is used in the propaganda piece, using the same footage previously seen in the film, despite the fact that neither of the cameramen were there to film it.
• The cameramen are named Caster and Pollux. Oh, fuck off. They're not even twins!
• The scene on the stairwell during the air raid. Like, all of it.
• District 13, which is entirely underground, meaning space is at a premium, has a private closet so Jennifer Lawrence can pad the film's runtime go Have Angst every now and again.
• President Evil, despite living in a palace, doesn't have an emergency backup generator.
• Jennifer Lawrence, while attractive and talented, runs out of ways to portray the ever-increasing and narmy amounts of trauma being inflicted on her.
• Every time we go back to Firebombed!District 12, I expect to see a Terminator stomping on a human skull.
• Jennifer Lawrence decides to Skype President Evil. 
• The above, despite the fact that she knows he's managed to emotionally traumatize her every single time they've communicated thus far.
• President Evil teleconferences via Skype with Jennifer Lawrence.
• During the above, he reveals his master plan like a Republic serial villain. 'tard. 
• Rebels use gas grenades against soldiers who are never seen, but who heretofore have been seen exclusively wearing full helmets.
• Due to the lighting or the lack thereof, the above resembles a Daft Punk music video.
• While the above is going on, we're treated to snippets of the villain's backstory. The former is given precedence over the latter, despite the fact that by this point in the story, nobody cares about Saint Millstone.
• If all of Finnick's lovers rapists knew about President Evil, how come he hasn't been deposed yet?
• Saint Millstone does an interview with a twisted collar. Not wrong per se, just very distracting.
• The only indication that Saint Millstone has been coerced is that he gets more and more robotic (an accomplishment, all things considered) as the film goes on.
• The CGI used to make Saint Millstone look emaciated at the end of the film looks impossibly bad. It's like nobody considered doing what the first Captain America film did.
• Saint Millstone, despite being emaciated via the medium of torture and CGI, is able to beat the stuffing out of Jennifer Lawrence, who by this point (one assumes) has had at least some military training.
• There are no Hunger Games.