Teen romance and armed insurrection make strange bedfellows in Mockingjay Part I. 

Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in

the third chapter of the movie tetralogy based on Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novels. The series chronicles a horribly destructive civil war taking place in a dystopic future in which a small class of hedonistic oligarchs subjugate, torture, and murder the citizenry at will. Yet the franchise’s essential appeal for many readers and viewers centers on a teenage love triangle, inarguably an issue of slighter moral and dramatic weight (unless, of course, you are a teenager).

Reconciling the puniness of Katniss Everdeen’s boyfriend dilemma with the scale of the political violence erupting around her was somehow less morally vexing in the first two chapters,

Perhaps that’s because Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her preternaturally loyal sweethearts, baker Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) and game-tracker Gale (Liam Hemsworth) were the chief action protagonists of those films, responsible for using their skill and wit to survive. (Katniss and Peeta were trapped in a digital biodome and forced to—do we really need to go over the plot of

directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Peter Craig and Danny Strong, the symbolic wars of the Hunger Games—staged as cathartic spectacles for a depraved aristocracy—have given way to real war, state terror, and armed rebellion on a grand scale. It’s harder to care about the question of whether she’s just that into him (or him) when entire hospital is full of wounded civilians are being firebombed.

It’s not Jennifer Lawrence’s fault that Katniss is an oxygen-hogging drama queen.

’s maundering pace may also be attributable to the fact that it’s only the first half of a two-part finale. Collins’ last book has been divided into two films, a choice increasingly common among studio heads dedicated to giving audiences additional time to say goodbye to beloved franchises (and themselves additional summer homes). It isn’t spoiling the ending to say that this slow-moving penultimate chapter comes to a jarring halt right in the middle of a climactic scene. The suddenness of this ending seems meant to leave the audience in a state of jangling suspense, but the vibe I sensed in the room after the cut to final credits was less “Whoa! Can’t wait till next year!” than “Well, that’s one place to randomly end things.”

’s placeholder status is a little too evident in its choppy, shapeless structure, this dark third chapter does have stretches of somber beauty. War and teenage angst make for uncomfortable narrative bedfellows, but at least the political violence that rips through the fictional country of Panem is neither glossed over nor trivialized. (The film is rated PG-13, but there are scenes of point-blank execution and mass slaughter that may be too upsetting even for some older children.) And Jennifer Lawrence is actress enough to invest even Katniss’ comparatively low-stakes struggle with some dramatic heft. It’s not Lawrence’s fault that the fierce Katniss is something of an oxygen-hogging drama queen, one of those fantasy-wish-fulfillment heroines (like

’s Bella, another victim of franchise penultification) over whom the rest of the characters inexplicably fawn even when she’s at her most annoying.

As we begin, Katniss, who became a state-sanctioned national hero over the course of the first two films, has just escaped from the forces of the nefarious President Snow (Donald Sutherland, all but twisting a pinky at the corner of his lip). In an underground rebel hideout in District 13, the rebel organizer Alma Coin—Julianne Moore in ironed-straight silver hair, this year’s look for coolly benevolent dystopian leaderesses—is assembling a homegrown militia to take on the seemingly unstoppable forces of the Capitol. Coin, along with Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman)—the head gamemaker turned chief strategist for the resistance—knows that Katniss, with her Panem-wide fame, photogenic face, and defiant nature, will make the ideal symbol for their rebellion. In a series of propaganda videos they release after hacking into the state television channel, Katniss becomes known (after the bird that came to stand for the secret rebellion in previous chapters) as “the Mockingjay.”

So the stage is set for a grand battle between the forces of repression and those of freedom—but you’ll need to wait a year for that battle to begin in earnest. With the exception of one spectacular attack on a Capitol dam (scored to an eerie faux-folk ballad sung by Lawrence and co-composed by Suzanne Collins herself), not much of military significance takes place in

Instead, the characters all spend a great deal of time talking in small rooms in the bunkerlike rebel outpost, clad in matching olive-drab jumpsuits (to the horror of Effie Trinket, the Capitol fashionista turned political refugee played with sweet, campy pathos by Elizabeth Banks). Many of these conversations are about whether Katniss will agree to be the Mockingjay, and on what terms—she wants to secure the release of Peeta, who’s being held prisoner at the Capitol and groomed as a reality-TV star.

might be charitably termed “workmanlike,” but that adjective has an honor to it when applied to a performer like Philip Seymour Hoffman, who turns the less-than-developed role of Heavensbee into a real character, a wily operative with a grudging respect for his stubborn, unmanageable charge. In a way, Lawrence’s performance in this series serves as a tribute to her late co-star; she’s becoming an actor who, as Hoffman could, elevates a run-of-the-mill blockbuster just by fully investing herself in the part. It’s only her ability to telegraph Katniss’ genuine horror at the suffering she witnesses that allows us to put up with this sometimes grating character’s incessant romantic waffling. “I can’t lose them

,” she sobs when both Gale and Peeta are in danger, and even though you can’t help feeling she kind of

to lose at least one of them, you find yourself rooting for the whole angsty trio to come back for one more crack at saving the world.

Obama’s Trojan Horse? No, the president’s executive action on immigration will not create millions of Democratic voters. Jamelle Bouie

Polio Could Soon Be the Second Human Disease Eradicated by Vaccines

The Most Likely Scenarios for Obama’s Immigration Overhaul, Charted

Why Doesn’t the GOP Care That a Bunch of Other Presidents Went It Alone on Immigration?

Even if We Blow the Deadline in the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations, Keep Talking

According to the NRA, the First Victims of a Mass Shooting Are Merely an Alarm for Others to Respond

Pizza Hut Asked a Bunch of Old Italian People to Judge Its Pizza Alison Griswold

Uh-Oh: Administration Overcounted Obamacare Enrollees by 380,000

Man Hit With $1,142 in Wi-Fi Overage Charges on Flight From London to Singapore

Which Industries Are the Most Liberal and Most Conservative?

Apple Made a Small but Significant Change to Free Apps in the App Store

Generic Drugs Kept Health Care Cheaper for 30 Years. Why Are Their Prices Surging?

“Typical Starting Salary” Is Terrible Way to Choose a College

The Remains of a Columbus Controversy That Just Won’t Die

What’s Behind My Secret Disdain for Stay-at-Home Parents?

What Would a Redesigned U.S. Dollar Look Like?

Help! My Always-Naked Wife Is Turning Our Children Into Little Nudists.

Why Does Alleged Sexual Predator R. Kelly Still Have a Career? Josh Levin

You Can Now Put Zits, Cellulite, and Bruises on Your "Normal Barbie"

Don Lemon Asks Cosby Rape Accuser Why She Didn’t Just Gnaw Her Way Out of Danger

A History of the Sexiest Man Alive: Three Decades of What

It’s Not Your Kids Holding Your Career Back. It’s Your Husband.

Podcast, Episode 7 The “Test of Strength” edition. J. Bryan Lowder and Willa Paskin

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at “Can Whole Foods Change the Way Poor People Eat?”

’s Working Podcast, Episode 8 Transcript: How Does a Porn Star Work?

’s Working Podcast, Episode 7 Transcript: Your Waiter Is Judging You

. --> What Is It Like to Be Suspected? We Discuss the Latest Episode of

. David Haglund, Katy Waldman, and Willa Paskin

Shows Us the Dark Side of That Viral Aerobics Video

Mike Nichols Said There Are Three Kinds of Scenes. He Was Great at All of Them.

Why It Matters That Alfonso Cuarón Is Speaking Up About Violence in Mexico

Texting Is Bad For Your Spine. Duh. Lily Hay Newman

Phony Tech Support Companies Swindled Customers Out of $120 Million, Says FTC

Healthcare.gov Is Working. We Should Still Be Furious About Its Failures.

Buffalo’s Superstorm of Snow Amazingly Continues—Total Could Reach 100 Inches (Video)

Google Says Search Results Are Free Speech. That’s Not Entirely Crazy. 

Look Out, Google: Yahoo Is Becoming a Search Engine Again

Motorola Made a Way for Your Smartphone and Your Keys to Find Each Other

Five Places in the Solar System We Should Explore Next

NASA’s Swift Observatory: 10 Years of Watching the Most Violent Explosions in the Universe

What Happens When Billionaires Try to Turn Mathematicians Into Rock Stars

Glenn Beck’s Made-Up Medical Condition Was Cured by Quackery

Bad as They Wanna Be Is the Philadelphia 76ers’ lose-on-purpose approach to team-building ingenious or morally bankrupt? Jack Hamilton

The Resignation of Michigan’s Villainous Athletic Director Is Why We Like College Sports

How LeBron James and Cleveland Found Their Way Back to Each Other

’s Marathon Time Predictor—a Better Way to Calculate How Fast You’ll Run


Should the Royals’ Alex Gordon Have Tried to Dash Home to Tie Game 7 of the World Series?

NBA Stars Aren’t Superheroes. They Break Just Like the Rest of Us Puny Humans.

Kyrie on My Wayward Son, and 2014’s Other Most Popular Fantasy Basketball Team Names

Why We Post Nothing—Nothing—About Our Kid Online. You Should Do the Same for Your Kids. 

What Happened When Whole Foods Tried to Challenge Elitism, Racism, and Obesity in Detroit

Bill Cosby’s Career Is Over. What Will It Take to Bring Down R. Kelly?

Why Independent Bookstores Are More Than Just Places to Buy Books

The National Organization for Marriage Has Collapsed Into Debt

Congressman: Obama’s Immigration Move Could Prompt Impeachment, Prison Time