The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I comes out blazing. How could it not? Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence, suited up again as the heroic Katniss Everdeen, is a firebrand for the ages. Returning director Francis Lawrence (no relation), working from a script by series newbies Peter Craig and Danny Strong, delivers the dazzle without sacrificing the smarts. The suspense is killer. Ditto the thrill of the hunt. The film uses the extra time to, of all things, develop characters and give this dystopian fable a human scale.

The greedy suits have gone ahead and wrecked our cinematic experience once again. Where we could have had a cracker of an end to the Hunger Games franchise, what we get is half a novel, which, as expected, has more pauses than action, more waiting than doing.

The beauty of the film lies in the fact that as part of a blockbuster, massive hit series, it is rather unassuming of its importance. There’s a Lawrence-ish nonchalance of its effect on people and as much as it is very serious in nature, it doesn’t take its own success seriously. You are shocked and you’re forced to think, but you certainly get out of the theatre thinking that you’re glad you watched it.

First, watch the first two films in this franchise. You will have to or you will be scratching your head through parts of the film. And it won’t be because of the dandruff.

The decision to convert the already thinly-plotted final book in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy into two movies still remains highly debatable, but Mockingjay Part 1 manages to add more to the arguments in its favor than against it. The film manages to not be the disaster that it could’ve been, instead serving as an effective means of raising the curiosity and excitement levels for the final chapter. Go into the theaters with reasonable expectations, and you’ll come out thinking of the film more as an additional treat than a cash-grab ploy by the producers.

You get thrust into a dystopian future where you will enjoy the ride. Each character of the film is layered and every actor brings their own touch to the film. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 connects you to Katniss, her struggle and the rebellion. It is a wonderful third film in The Hunger Games series. And of course, you get to see Philip Seymour Hoffman’s wonderful acting once again.