The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 2

 

First of all the idea of splitting the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy into two movies was hubris and greed from the studios that turned a nice series of novels into something I thought they could never be - boring. The first hour is so slow that I wanted to give up on seeing if the ending to the movie matched the books. The events of the third book could have easily been contained in one film and a much better film than Part 2 turns out to be. I never got the feeling that there was a larger war going on beyond the team of rebels that we are following and that is something else that is boring. Ennui can only carry a story for so long.

Fortunately though, this film has Jennifer Lawrence in it to lead the revolution to it's only logical conclusion. She really carried the final forty minutes and gives us a real solid ending to a film series that deserves to be enjoyed in it's entirety in one sitting if only to see the full arc of Donald Sutherland's story and his connection to Katniss all along. I love it most when he plays such deliciously evil characters.

The ending does hit you like a ton of bricks. And I saw it coming all the way from down the block.

Bringing poor damaged Peta with them on their journey seems unnecessary and risky in a practical sense but for a story that needs the feelings, his being around is just to advance the story and it feels like a cheap story device. Again a problem with extending one book into two movies.

The real problem here is that the whole motivation for many of Katniss' actions require us to believe that she desperately loves Peta, something the actors playing those two characters can't pull off because short little Peta is not worthy of Katniss. He was badly miscast. Maybe Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth should have switched roles. That makes more sense to me and it's bothered me since the first Hunger Games movie.

 

I did like all the traps that basically turn the capital into big death maze. Only then did the movie get interesting. It became like one big video game and I believed none of it, especially the fight with the zombie like monsters in the catacombs. In no way could someone design a city or better yet, destroy their city just to make a point that the rebels cannot be allowed to win, even if we have to lay the world to ruin just to do away with them. However, those parts were exciting to watch and a real pay-off for fans of the book series. I could have done without all the soft talking and goodbye hugs. Very juvenile fiction but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I needed something more despite a fine ending. But Kudos to Lawrence. She gave her all to this franchise and it succeeds and fails with her.

 

Mockingjay is a lengthy demonstration packed with more grief and soul searching than fun, to some readers' dismay... Yet it's hard not to admire the chutzpah of a heroic epic that debunks everything about heroes and epics.