The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

(Image credit: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay)

This penultimate instalment is dour, dark and talky as Jennifer Lawrence's renegade warrior Katniss Everdeen reluctantly joins the propaganda battle against Donald Sutherland's regime

This penultimate instalment is dour, dark and talky as Jennifer Lawrence's renegade warrior Katniss Everdeen reluctantly joins the propaganda battle against Donald Sutherland's regime.

Meanwhile, her friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) becomes a propaganda tool for the other side.

With much of the action confined to the insurgents' underground bunkers, the film matches Katniss' sombre mood as it explores the pros and cons of revolution and the manipulative power of propaganda.

Even Elizabeth Banks' bubble-headed fashionista Effie Trinket looks drab. But just as Katniss' iconic presence proves uplifting for the story's downtrodden masses, Lawrence's charisma keeps the audience on side, too.