The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

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After reviewing Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes this morning and it being a ridiculously hot day in here Aus, I decided that there was no better time to finish watching the Hunger Games saga than today. So, I sat down after lunch and watched all four movies. At least I can say that I’ve seen them all now…if nothing else.

The rebels living beneath the rubble of District 13 have successfully extracted Peeta and the other hostages from the Capitol, but the victory is cut short when Peeta tries to kill Katniss. Brainwashed and broken into being an assassin, Peeta undergoes procedures to reverse the Capitol’s manipulation while Katniss makes a plan to sneak into the Capitol and assassinate President Snow. The war is in full swing and Katniss goes to the front lines to enact her plan, but as more and more people begin to drop hints not to trust President Coin, Katniss begins to wonder if she’s not just a pawn in another, bloody, game.

I have been reminded why I lost interest in these movies. As soon as they switched from dystopian to war movie, I was out. Without the drama of the arena, the characters all became pretty boring and the larger story of a reluctant girl becoming the voice of a revolution just doesn’t captivate.  I found nothing about this film interesting at all, it’s as if everything that it originally had going for it was left to peter out and all that was left was this uninteresting urban war film with the no more emotional payoff than a bar of soap.

The performances are all fine, though I felt that they too had been left to become flat, and by the end of the movie, I was still of the sound opinion that Katniss Everdeen is one of the most unapproachable and uninteresting heroines in film and literature.

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All this is not to say that Mockingjay Part 2 is a bad film, merely a boring one. It’s got action, drama, and a few plot twists that made the needle on the pulse machine twitch, but nothing more. I’m glad I can say I’ve watched them all, but I definitely won’t be revisiting them again.

Director: Francis Lawrence, 2015

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Willow Shields, Sam Clafin, Jeffrey Wright, Mahershala Ali, Jena Malone, Stanley Tucci & Phillip Seymour Hoffman