Finally the third Hunger Games movie, which is only part one of the final book in the series, has been released into theaters. Many people have been wondering what will happen to Peeta and Joanna since in the last movie, Catching Fire, they were captured by the capital. However if you have read the books then you already know what is going to happen and you may just be wondering if the movie can be just as good as the book; its always disappointing when the movie fails the expectations and is not.

The last film left followers of the Hunger Games with some startling information. District twelve was destroyed, district thirteen does exist,  Peeta and Joanna were captured by the capital, and Plutarch, Finnick, Beetee, and Haymitch were all secretly part of the beginning of the rebellion. All of that is overwhelming to have to hear all at once. First of all, how did everyone not know about district thirteen surviving the war that supposedly wiped them out and was completely destroyed? Clearly the capital was withholding a lot of information from the other districts.

Jennifer Lawrence did a great job as usual playing the character Katniss. Her incredible acting skills were really shown off in the scene where the hospital in District Eight is burned down and no one survived. Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, also did an amazing job as he really made the audience believe that he was mentally unstable and insane after his rescue from the capital. We really didn’t see much of Joanna in this movie. She was shown for a brief five seconds at the end where you could see that she was now bald and clearly was put through a lot of physical pain. It was really sad to see Philip Seymour Hoffmen, who plays the part of Plutarch Heavensbee the head gamemaker, on the screen since he unfortunately died earlier this year from a drug overdose. He had done an outstanding job and it’s tragic that a great actor like him is gone.

Mockingjay starts off with Katniss being in the recovery center of the district thirteen hospital which is exactly how the book begins as well. Everything appears to follow the same story line except when Effie Trinket, Katniss and Peeta’s escort during their time in the hunger games, appears in District Thirteen. The book hadn’t mentioned her until almost the very end when Katniss and her team took down President Snow. The reason for putting her in District Thirteen in the movie may be because the producers felt that Effie was such a vital character and she contributed so much in the past two movies that they couldn’t just leave her out of this one. It’s definitely a good twist to what was expected.

The ending of the movie could have been a little better. The movie ends with Katniss recovering from the attack from Peeta and starring into the room where Peeta is basically losing his mind. They may have chosen this ending to cause dramatic effect on what lies ahead for Katniss and Peeta’s relationship since he now views her as a threat.

Spoiler alert: if you haven’t read the books then you probably are going to want to skip to the next paragraph so some information about what’s going to happen in part is given away.

A better place to end the movie would have been when Katniss gets shot and we aren’t sure if she’s going to live or not. Another decent cut-off point would have been when Peeta attacks her and she blacks out as Peeta gets knocked out by Boggs. Both of these other ending objects would have left the audience filled with questions such aswhat will happen to Katniss and Peeta’s relationship and will either of them survive?

Now people will be on their toes and anxious to see what will happen next in part two of Mockingjay which will be released in November of 2015. If you haven’t read the books and are dieing to know what happens before next November it’s the perfect time to start the series since you have an entire year!!!!