The much-anticipated third installment of The Hunger Games franchise opened this week in Singapore, much like the rest of the world (maybe?) and boy am I slightly disappointed. Why? Not about the movie but the money-making thing going on. But before I get into that, let me tell you what Mockingjay Part 1 is about.

This movie continues from Catching Fire after Katniss shot the arrow towards the force field covering the Games arena and found out that Peeta was captured by the Capitol along with Joanna and Annie. In District 13, Katniss was pushed to be Mockingjay (duh), the symbol of rebellion. But of course she couldn’t do it without the help of people who knew her from the Games, Haymitch and Effie. Whilst she was the Mockingjay, Capitol was taunting Katniss with Peeta, being their weapon of choice, urging the rebels to cease fire. Snow then delivered a quite apt quote for this first-parter: “It’s the things we love the most that destroy us.”

I was looking forward to this movie because as someone who read the book, I was initially skeptical of how Josh Hutcherson was going to portray the troubled, tortured and darker side of Peeta in the last book. But I was very impressed after watching the movie. He did very well. Other than Josh, I loved Natalie Dormer’s Cressida. Exactly who I pictured to be – a badass. Jennifer Lawrence also does have a good singing voice. Not great but pretty well for someone I’ve not heard sang before with the exception of the Rue’s four-note song. The song that was sung by Jennifer Lawrence called “The Hanging Tree” could be the next “Do You Hear The People Sing”.

But what disappoints me was not the casting nor the plot but the money-making part of the business. Mockingjay was 400+ pages long and I can tell you that they can do it in 3 hours. Interstellar was 3 hours long and I sat through the entire goddamn movie. After Harry Potter‘s last book was split into two movies, every other YA books followed suit to make their last book a two-parter and I don’t understand why. Harry Potter had a reason for two parts: There were a lot of things in that book that cannot be compressed into one movie – the characters had to find the horcruxes to destroy before they could defeat Lord Voldermort. To shrink that into one would be cutting a lot of things that would make the audience, especially those who do not read the books, confused. Mockingjay on the other hand could afford to remove some parts and make it into one movie.

And another thing about the movie is the lost opportunity. If they would want to make it a two-parter, they could have end it differently to make it really awesome. I would like to tell you exactly what makes it a lost opportunity but that would mean I would have to reveal a spoiler. But I could say that there was a scene after which the screen went black and another scene came in. If they were to cut the movie off at that very scene before the blank screen, it would have been a great cliffhanger, which would make the audience want to come back to watch Part 2. With the current ending, it is good but not great, thus lost opportunity.

With that said, I give this movie a 4 out of 5. It is enjoyable with hilarious scenes in between the gloom and an adorable cat (which contributes to two of that 4 rating I gave).

The trailer…