I’ve watched one Hunger Games and two Allegiant trailers today and wanted to make a few comments. First up: Mockingjay 2.
Wow! I would say the Gamemakers have decided, why change something that’s working? We see a lot of familiar faces and sweet scenes (Annie and Finnick, Katniss and Haymitch, Katniss and Prim and even a Katniss and hopefully de-hijacked Peeta) interspersed with a lot of action. That is to be expected from the invasion of the Capitol, and I love Finnick’s “Welcome to the 76th Hunger Games” line. I didn’t see anything that jumped out and said, “Hey, that wasn’t in the book!”, except for Effie back in her froo-froo clothes, and she was such a welcome addition 
to Mockingjay 1 that I’ll let that one pass. The only think that surprised me was the apparently lush and manicured garden for Finnick and Annie’s wedding, a luxury I didn’t think district 13 could afford. But I am crossing my fingers for something as good as Catching Fire and Mockingjay 1, and the filmmakers seemed to have decided sticking to the book is good.
Besides, the lovely Erika Bierman, who stole our hearts as President’s Snow’s Nameless Granddaughter in her two brief scenes in Catching Fire, was spotted on the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere. Here’s hoping she can do more than unbraid her hair in this movie!
On to Allegiant, with two trailers, one a “teaser” (with a recap of the first two movies and one a new “official trailer.”
Hmmmm….. well, “true to the book” is not exactly what comes to mind. Allegiant seem to be diverging even more than Insurgent did. The fence that the citizens of Chicago seemed to be happily unlocking and passing through at the end of Insurgent now seems to be an insurmountable wall that our heroes much magically surmount (“Look, Ma, no hands!”) like Joel 
Schumacher’s Batman Forever version of the Batmobile. In one trailer, Tris and Four seem to be fighting their way out of Chicago; in the other, they seem to be trying to get back in. Between the force fields, air vehicles that look like the flying bison of The Last Airbender (what happened to the ancient and battered planes?), Tris piloting some sort of flying glass pod, the apparent armed showdown of Chicago versus the Bureau, and whatever the mechanical frisbees are supposed to be, I am not sure I would recognize this film as Allegiant without the title. The only similarity I see is that they apparently do go someplace and meet a distinguished-looking scientist named David.
Insurgent managed to be a fairly decent action movie, even if it was only loosely based on the book, so I am trying to be optimistic, but there is a limit to how loose you can get. Besides, I didn’t even get a good look at Peter, whose smart-ass personality was one of the more interesting aspects of the first two films. Crossing my fingers for this one, but trying not to set my hopes too high.
Speak Your Mind