Thursday’s Comic-Con panels in Hall H included sneak peeks of the final installment of the Hunger Games collective. Fans were chomping at the bit and several Katniss lookalikes were tightening their bows. Based on the initial cheers, a large portion of the audience likely waited all night on the cold sidewalk for any small taste of how the popular series would end.

The Lionsgate panel was preceded by a white-vested marching band. Because High School. And of course the battle drums leading to the final showdown. Next up: a video message straight from District 13.

The first teaser was an ROTC-style choreographed video of the soldiers of District 13 prepping for battle. #Unite

Then in walked Conan O’Brien—who has been filming his show from various parts of Comic-Con—as moderator of the panel. Just to clarify, he announced that he is NOT in the Hunger Games films but he IS Team Josh (Hutcherson that is, who plays Peeta for those not immersed in the Panem universe.)

Questions posed included one towards producer Nina Jacobson about how she came to her decisions in bringing this franchise to a close. She gave most of the credit to Suzanne Collins’ incredible ability to bring this epic commentary on our society and politics through her books. Emotions were high as the cast begins their final press engagements and saying their goodbyes to each other and their well beloved characters. Jacobson spoke of her desire to deliver to the fans, who have delivered so much back to them.

Director Francis Lawrence spoke on what we could expect, and though he slipped a little with Katniss’s final decisions in the movie’s end (not the least of a few accidental spoilers mentioned in the panel that book readers will be well aware of including the epilogue), he mentions Katniss will be brought out from the sidelines she resided in in the first installment of Mockingjay.

Then what the people came for: the first full trailer for the film. Where weapons are finally aimed on the Capitol, and on Snow. Ending to thunderous applause, those faithful to the book will see visual proof that there will be many, many scenes honored and uncut from the book, as is so often feared with adaptations. Later in the panel, Francis Lawrence shared that the ending will be just like the book.

Jennifer Lawrence was asked about her favorite Katniss moment from all of the movies. She stumbled with memory recall and overwhelmed by the broadness of the question (and amid shouts of “I love you Jennifer!”) but Willow Shields (Primrose Everdeen) bailed her out by declaring that of course it had to be when she volunteered as tribute. But Lawrence did say that her favorite moment will be in the last movie and she didn’t want to spoil it.

Joshua Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark) was asked about where we will pick up with Peeta after the traumatic place we left off with him (trying to choke the life out of Katniss). Just as well-spoken as his character, he shared that it’s a long road to recovery. And of course Jennifer Lawrence reminds him Peeta couldn’t stay away long, euphemisms intended.

For Gale’s part, Liam Hemsworth spoke about how the stakes are raised again for him in this last movie. The friendly dynamic between Hemsworth, Lawrence, and Hutcherson was by far the most amusing part of the panel.

Asked what they are most excited to see resolved in this final film, Francis Lawrence replied he is excited for everyone to finally have closure and to experience the way it ends.

When asked what they hope fans will take away from this last film, Jennifer Lawrence responded with, “the power of our future is in our own hands.” Recalling how at the beginning of the movies it is just one girl against everything and though the book condenses world issues into one continent, they are very real. Lawrence also appeared slightly emotional when asked how she bid goodbye to Katniss, declaring that it hasn’t happened yet and the changes made in her through the movies are so permanent they will never leave her.

Set to come to theaters November 20th, the new trailer features plenty of action and what looks to be a satisfying ending to what has been a true-to-the-books adapted series.

Director Matt Shakman has worked a lot in television, most recently on FX’s television adaptation of the Coen brothers’ film Fargo, which is no surprise when watching his first foray into filmmaking, Cut Bank. Walking the line between thriller and dark comedy, the film boasts an all-star cast who can’t completely make-up for some misdirection and whose side characters completely outshine the film’s star, Liam Hemsworth.

Literally using the words “if I have to stay another day in this town,” discontented Dwayne (Hemsworth) dreams of a life outside Cut Bank, Montana (the “coldest spot in the nation”) with his girlfriend Cassandra (Teresa Palmer). One evening, when filming an amateur tourist video with Cassandra in a field outside of town, Dwayne accidentally captures the murder of a postal worker, Georgie Wits (Bruce Dern), on camera. Immediately taking the video to Cassandra’s father, and Dwayne’s boss, Mr. Steeley (Billy Bob Thornton) calmly calls in Sheriff Vogel (John Malkovich) to determine what to do next. The weak-stomached Sheriff starts his investigation as Dwayne looks into the huge reward he is apparently eligible for now that he’s provided information on the untimely death of a U.S. postal worker. Twists abound and are revealed in turn as we discover that not all participants in this crime are as innocent, or dead, as they first appeared. Turns out that providing the mailman’s dead body to a U.S. postal investigator (Oliver Platt) is the least of these small-time crooks’ worries as they unforeseeably piss off local recluse Derby Milton (Michael Stuhlbarg), who was expecting a package from the mailman that he’s bound and determined to track down.

Cut Bank clearly strives for the same dark comedic energy that Fargo has in abundance, but its inability to balance its dark situations with its humorous characters makes it hard to comfortably enjoy. The plot is fantastic, its actors equally so, but they are too reined in, with not enough vitality to engage. John Malkovich is especially unbelievable, his timid Sheriff played with too much subtlety. In fact, the only actors allowed to effectively shine are Oliver Platt’s fast-talking suit-wearing Inspector Barrett, Dern’s sassy “dead” man, and Stuhlbarg’s stuttering and intriguingly-motivated murderous outsider. Hemsworth just isn’t able to build sympathy, and Palmer is incredibly abused as the only character who is actually as shallow as she appears.

A sharply written script by Robert Patino, featured on 2009’s Black List, where all the elements exist but just aren’t quite fully realized. Seeing James Newton Howard’s name in the end’s musical credits was surprising as the muted music of the film did nothing to heighten tension or encourage the edge it’s sorely lacking in. While Fargo takes advantage of its snowy location, allowing it to serve as an instrumental element of the film’s themes and mood, the bleakness of Cut Bank is never explored, nor the wide expanses or back woods of Montana. Cut Bank is a mimicry of better films, which begs the question that if put into the hands of a more capable filmmaker, could it have lived up to the script’s potential?

A version of this review was first published in our 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival coverage. Cut Bank is out in limited release Friday, April 3.

Watch the new trailer for the Liam Hemsworth-helmed film Cut Bank, directed by TV director Matt Shakman. The film involves a cast of characters in the tiny rural town of Cut Bank, Montana, known for its cold winters, the central lead being Hemsworth’s Dwayne, a young man sick of his surroundings and desperate for escape. His lucky break comes in the form of the murder of local postman Georgie (Bruce Dern), which Dwayne happens to catch on his handheld camera. The reward for information around the death of a postal worker? $100,000 dollars.

But Dwayne’s big break may have nothing to do with luck. In the meantime the sheriff, played with uncharacteristic meekness by John Malkovich, is on the hunt for a murderer and a motive, while a local recluse enacts his own violent search for a parcel carried by the “murdered” postal worker.

With Oliver Platt, Billy Bob Thornton, Teresa Palmer and Michael Stuhlbarg rounding out the rest of the star-filled cast, the first trailer reveals a very Coen-like noir feel. The trailer plays up the dramatic over the quirky that we recall when we caught the film at the LA Film Festival, but definitely manages to pique just the right amount of interest.

Read our Los Angeles Film Festival coverage of Cut Bank and look for it on DirecTV on February 26 and in theaters April 3.

Following the money-doubling strategy that maximized the lucrativeness of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian-epic Hunger Games series has been split into two movies, the first of which, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, hits theaters today. Halving the franchise’s third act is a smart business move no doubt, but there’s an artistic compromise involved that Mockingjay‘s shortcomings can largely be attributed to. This doesn’t feel like a fully-formed movie; it feels like an episode, a placeholder, a transient experience that’ll get you excited for the series’ explosive conclusion, but doesn’t offer much sustenance on its own to encourage revisiting (unlike its excellent, re-watchable predecessor, Catching Fire). The movie’s abrupt, randomly-placed ending is frustrating and off-putting because, well, it happens in the middle of the book. It’s not an ending at all, really. But hey, in the big-budget landscape of Hollywood, where two tickets are better than one, them’s the breaks.

Mockingjay is the darkest entry in the series, in more ways than one. Gone this time around are the glitz, pageantry, and blood-soaked spectacle of the games themselves, with fierce rabble-rouser Katniss Everdeen’s defiance of the tyrannical President Snow instead taking center stage. Katniss has been positioned (whether she likes it or not) as the symbol for the brewing insurgency sparked by her survival of two Hunger Games in a row, and throughout the film we follow her as she grows into her new role as “The Mockingjay”, the rebellion’s goddess of war.

The film largely takes place within the bowels of District 13, a forgotten, underground compound that looks like a dreary doomsday silo and now acts as headquarters for the rebel forces. Running the show down below are the benevolent President Coin (Julianne Moore, a series newbie) and Capitol turncoat Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who together use Katniss and her image to stoke the flames of the revolution. Also roaming the halls of District 13 is former Hunger Games fashion consultant Effie (Elizabeth Banks), who misses her giant wigs and is none too pleased by the drab jumpsuits she’s now forced to wear.

J-Law’s casting as the durable, tormented Katniss continues to be the franchise’s greatest boon. She has a knack for making scenes that, while perhaps silly on the page, come off as totally convincing on screen. In a scene that serves as both an exhibition of her acting skills and a meta examination of the franchise’s mass appeal, Katniss, dressed in warrior-queen armor and standing in front of a green screen, awkwardly postures and regurgitates cheesy lines for a rebel propaganda video. It’s all good for a laugh, but it also succinctly expresses how unready she is to be a revolutionary symbol, as well as how distressed and divided she is on the inside. Also affecting are recurring scenes in which a watery-eyed Katniss is tortured by broadcasted videos of baker boy Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), who’s being held captive by President Snow (again played by the naturally dastardly-looking Donald Sutherland) and is looking more sickly with each televised appearance.

Moments like these–in which the characters act in front of a camera to further a political agenda, echoing the duplicitous nature of politics in our own society–are a trademark of the series. The device is growing a little stale, but the message still rings true. The key theme here, though, is liberation from oppression. Peppered throughout the film are sequences of citizens fighting back against Capitol forces, as well as images of mass slaughter (a rebel raid on a Capitol dam is breathtaking). The amount of action in Mockingjay is considerably less than its predecessors, as the focus here is more on the larger costs of war rather than intimate acts of violence. (That isn’t to say the film isn’t violent, though: a multi-district execution scene’s lurid presentation is particularly startling.) The stakes feel high, and that’s a good thing.

What isn’t so good, however, are the film’s momentum-less pacing and shapeless plot. The story never finds its purpose, because its purpose lies in another movie, which we won’t see until next year. The climax we’re given around the series’ most insipid sub-plot: the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale (Liam Hemsworth). The thing that appeals to me most about Katniss as a character (besides her being a legitimately dangerous badass) is that, unlike most other Hollywood heroines, her existence isn’t defined by her romantic life. In fact, she barely has one! She’s more than compelling enough on her own, and to be honest, it’s hard to think of more uninteresting characters than Gale and Peeta, whose personalities are virtually interchangeable. They’re both heroic, they both really love Katniss. One’s tall, one’s small. Blah, blah, blah. Who needs ’em? To be fair, the the story isn’t so fascinated with the boys. But in this film more than the others, I questioned whether or not I care about them at all.

There’s a lot of talking in Mockingjay: talking in rooms, talking on rubble, talking at TV screens. No one is given much to do besides skulk and strategize in their drab living quarters and war rooms. It’s obvious that underneath all of the motivational speeches and propaganda videos, what this movie is really meant to do is bide time until Part 2 hits next year. I’m willing to bet that, in the grand scheme of things, Mockingjay won’t be viewed as such a trudge of a movie. I’m hoping Part 2 blows us away and gives Part 1 some much-needed context and payoff. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to gulp down the chaser for this bland, bitter drink of a film.

Much like its successful predecessor, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire–directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) and based on the book series by Suzanne Collins–features rock-solid performances, great writing, and inventive action set pieces set in a sci-fi dystopia. The Hunger Games was a largely enjoyable and entertaining blockbuster romp, but its sequel betters it in every respect, a tightly-woven, thrilling, adrenaline-pumped beast of a film with a 146-minute running time that feels like 60. Like a bulldozer, the film plows forward, never stopping, sweeping you up in its sci-fi action clutches and never letting go.

As the film begins, we find our teen heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, the backbone of the film) in a traumatized state after “winning” the last Hunger Games–a Battle Royale-style arena challenge used as a tool of oppression by a totalitarian government called “The Capitol”–for the people of District 12, the place she calls home. She and her friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who represented District 12 with her in the games, found a way for them to both survive the contest, outsmarting the Capitol and irritating President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in the process. The bow-wielding huntress’ cunning defiance has made her something of a symbol of hope for the destitute, violently oppressed districts of Panem. In retaliation, the malevolent Snow has finagled the next games so that Katniss and Peeta are thrown in again, along with other winning tributes from previous games.

As Katniss and Peeta are sent on a Capitol-mandated “victory tour”, paraded around in front of the districts whose tributes they’ve killed in the games, they wrestle with overwhelming PTSD and winners’ guilt (they’re plagued with constant night terrors and visions of death), though they’re forced to feign happiness (and love for each other) when in public. Katniss is reluctant in her new role as revolutionary, to say the least. Disgusted is a better word. Though she’s ignited a spark of revolution in Panem, all she really wants is to keep her loved ones safe and lead a normal life–a fool’s dream at this point, tragically.

The tension is thick and the stakes are sky-high from the opening moments of the film, and the intensity never ever lets up. This is mostly thanks to Lawrence, who sells the gravity and magnitude of the drama every second she’s on screen. With the Capitol bearing down on her and the rebellion holding her up her up, she’s being crushed in the middle, and the anguish is written all over her face.

In a terrific scene, Katniss stands in front of a district whose deceased tribute was one of her allies in the games. She sees the family of the tribute, and guilt, sorrow, fury, and regret slowly crush the pretty princess charade forced onto her by the Capitol. She gives an impassioned, mournful eulogy of her fallen friend, and inadvertently inspires the downtrodden citizens to show transgressive signs of revolt against the Capitol guards, who respond with lethality. Katniss is dragged away, heart shattered by the consequences of her accidental incitation, and we see her soul break in front of our eyes. The grand, sweeping themes of gender expectations, mental oppression, feminism, and violence as entertainment are siphoned through a relatable, layered, human character in Katniss, and Lawrence gets the message across superbly.

The supporting cast rises to the occasion, too. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a new, fantastic addition to the cast (no surprise there), plays the new “game designer” (a sadistic position, in the context of these “games”.) Stanley Tucci returns as the absurdly jubilant Hunger Games host, and matching his pizazz is the also returning Elizabeth Banks as the gaudily attired Effie Trinket, Katniss and Peeta’s den mother, of sorts. Jena Malone is a standout as Johanna, an axe-wielding, F-bomb-dropping punk queen who spits in the face of the Capitol.

The love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and hunky huntsman Gale (Liam Hemsworth) is downplayed here, as are the games themselves. It’s appropriate, since the real story here is one of people vs government. Fear not; nearly half of the film is spent with Katniss fighting for her life in the games, but the light of the rebellion and shadow of the Capitol pervades it all. Like the first film, the actions scenes are slick and imaginative, and Lawrence sells the games’ danger just as well as she does the dramatic beats. Francis Lawrence has a good eye for action, and infuses the action set pieces with so much suspense and terror it can feel like a horror movie at times. The set and costume design are also excellent, and Lawrence’s lush visual style magnifies their craftsmanship.

The one major weakness of the film is an unavoidable one: the ending is such a cliffhanger (it follows the book to a T) that it makes the film feel more like an episode than a complete, contained story. It’s noticeably manipulative, but for the life of me I can’t begin to think of an alternative narrative route. This is a series, after all.

Despite sharing a similar narrative structure with the first film, Catching Fire ups the ante and heightens every element of the storytelling, from the drama to the stakes to the performances to the action. All of the elements of the film work so well in concert that it’ll capture your attention entirely, and you’ll forget that it’s a tentpole studio film meant to sell merchandise. It transcends the category of “young adult cash-grab” many are so quick to shove it into, next the Twilights of the world. It’s so much better than that; this is a high-quality science fiction series for a new generation, and it’s one they can be proud of.