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The decision to split Mockingjay into two films was an unnecessary one; the book is no longer than either of the preceding two, and one of the assets behind the books is their disciplined, strict structure: three sections, with nine chapters each. You can use this to get an idea of what would have happened to the first or second book in the series, had they been split roughly before the Games begin. We’d be left with Part 1’s that function entirely as one long setup. The employment of that technique here does some odd things to the story’s rhythm and pacing, but it works better than it really has any right to. Its biggest liability set against the book is that it provides none of the payoff that the book does, and this is something that’s going be rectified with the second film.

Assessed on its own terms, Part 1 is an improvement on the book’s first half. Both mediums share the same liability in their first half: namely, that the central character is sidelined for much of the consequential action, and only sporadically comes to life. Apart from that shared liability, the Part 1 film - by virtue of expanding the narrative to incorporate Coin, Snow, Heavensbee, and others in more significant roles - adds a layer of implication and political satire that really isn’t present in the book until well into the second half. This will serve to make two rather disparate halves of Mockingjay - the second half of Mockingjay is stuffed full of incident - flow better as a single story.

The unfortunate context here, as before, is that a Mockingjay Part 1 that’s an improvement on the first half of the book is still a weaker film overall than either of the first two Hunger Games films. I believe this was evident to the casual viewer at the time of the film’s release, and that it was at least partially responsible for the film’s noticeably lower critical score and box-office take in comparison to its predecessors. The movie deserves some credit for broadening the book’s themes and for occasionally exceeding the source material in how those themes are articulated, but this film’s success is dependent on the next film giving catharsis to those themes in a fitting way.

Book vs. movie winner: Movie, with an asterisk.

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