After four years, the worldwide phenomenon comes to a close with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, the second half the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ third book in The Hunger Games young adult book trilogy. It isn’t the strongest entry in the series (that title would belong to 2013’s exceptional Catching Fire), but it does provide it a fitting, if somewhat drawn out, conclusion.
Picking up right where The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 left off, we begin the film with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) recovering from her attack at the hands of Peeta. She is bruised and battered after having been betrayed by her friend and is then immediately thrust back into the war against the Capitol. After a rather laborious first half she, along with Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin), and a slew of others enter into the Capitol, which has been booby-trapped beyond all over, prompting one character to declare it the 76th Annual Hunger Games (something the Part 1 was sorely lacking).
Jennifer Lawrence’s career has skyrocketed since she appeared in the first film four years ago, but she is still fully committed to the role that fully put her in the public’s eye. It is to Lawrence’s credit that Mockingjay Part 2 works as well as it does. She has always been the one to ground the films and give them an emotional depth when they could sometimes come off as melodramatic.
Director Francis Lawrence films the action sequences in Mockingjay Part 2 frantically, to the point where it almost feels like you are watching Saving Private Ryan. Sometimes it is so frantic that you can’t always tell what is going on or who is dying. Such is war, after all, so it fits the situations perfectly. When a major character dies about halfway through the film, it’s barely given a second thought. No one stops to mourn them because there isn’t any time.
The film has a few thrilling action sequences as well, with the two best ones involving a flood of tar and the other a vicious attack by mutts in the sewers. The latter stands out as one of the most horrific sequences the films have ever done and it plays out wonderfully.
Where Mockjay Part 2’s strength lies (and this was also a strength of the book) is that it doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of war. Besides the aforementioned deaths, Mockingjay Part 2 serves up a bleak outlook on the repercussions of the rebellion and the toll that war can take on a society. While Mockingjay was the weakest part of the book trilogy, it’s ending is what set it apart from other YA novels of the same ilk, and this concluding chapter in the film franchise is no different. The final half of the film and, specifically, the closing 20 minutes, make up for many of the weaknesses that came before it
Unfortunately, Mockingjay Part 2 fails to justify splitting the 390-page novel up into two films totaling over four hours of films screen time. Much of the film’s first hour is spent in meetings between Katniss, President Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensby (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman), which is exactly what Mockingjay Part 1 consisted of. Hoffman’s absence due to his untimely death last year is especially felt at the end of the film, with Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch delivering a letter containing Plutarch’s parting words to Katniss.
With such a large cast, Mockingjay Part 2 attempts to give each character a proper sendoff, and while it may work for certain characters (Finnick and Jena Malone’s Johana), many other characters (Elizabeth Banks’ Effie and Stanley Tucci’s Caesar, among others) are underserved and it feels nothing more than a long game of roll call. Mockingjay Part 2 would have done better to just excise some of those characters in favor of giving others more screen time. This is all the more disappointing considering that the two films had over four hours of screen time to squeeze as many character moments in as it could. You have to give the film one thing: it doesn’t feel overstuffed.
One of the weaker parts of the previous films was the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale, and that problem continues to plague Mockingjay Part 2. The film grinds to a halt every time the characters discuss Peeta and Gale fighting for Katniss’ affection. The good news is that these scenes are few and far between, but since Gale is more present in this film than he ever was in any of the previous installments, they do occur more than you would like.
Overall, Mockingjay Part 2 does justice to the book and refuses to water down any of the harsher moments of its closing moments. Any worries fans may have had about the film watering down any parts of the novel can rest assured that the deaths hit hard and the ending is just as bittersweet as you remember. On its own, it still feels like half of a film. The first half is a bit of a slog to get through, but once they enter the city, it becomes an incredibly intense war movie. It still doesn’t surpass Catching Fire as the high point of the franchise, but it is a noble effort.
