Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

FIN06_Seashore2_Payoff_25x38One of the most anticipated films of this fall has been “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2,” the final installment of “The Hunger Games” film series.

The film, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen starts where the last film left off with Katniss waking up in the infirmary of District 13 following an attack on her life by Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), her love interest whose mind was corrupted by the Capitol after being captured at the end of “Catching Fire.”

After she gets out of the infirmary, Katniss goes to see Peeta and discovers that they are slowly making progress on getting him back to his regular self, but it had been taking some time.

She then is called by President Coin (Julianne Moore) to go to District 2 to film the propaganda footage to show those still being oppressed by the Capitol.

While shooting propaganda footage, a Capitol loyalist attempts to assassinate her since she is the figure head of the rebellion against the Capitol.

Following her recovery, she gets into an argument with President Coin about not being allowed to go to the frontlines.

Following the argument, she then grabs some material and sneaks onto a cargo ship heading for the Capitol frontlines.

When she arrives, she is met with shock and awe by the rebels who were surprised to see her recover so quickly.

Following the shock, she is then sorted into a squadron with Gale Hawthorn (Liam Hemsworth), various Hunger Games victors, and rebels from 13. They then are about to head out when they are informed another person will be joining their team.

Once the person joins their team, they slowly being their march towards the residence of President Snow (Don Sutherland), the leader of Panem.

After awhile of moving on the surface, they decide it would be safe if they ran underground in hopes to avoid traps.

While traveling underground, Katniss and her squad lose many fighters.

Following these loses, they wonder: will they be able to continue the mission or will the mission be a total failure?

Overall, I thought this movie was very well done.

I will admit it has probably been two or three years since I have read the book by Suzanne Collins.

I was pleasantly surprised by how accurate the movie was to the source material (a rare feat in modern Hollywood, may I add).

I was also really pleased with all the scenes with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played Plutarch Hevensbee.

Though he finished most of his scenes, I was happy to see that they kept the scenes in the final film, and didn’t reshoot them without Mr. Hoffman.

The only problem I had was the excessive action. Action films like “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” are fun, but the action has to be filmed properly. In my opinion, the camera was moving so fast in those scenes that it was almost nauseating and they almost put the action on overkill in this movie.

Sure, I get it, the last half of the Mockingjay book is a giant action scene, but Hollywood just likes to capitalize on action because that’s what they do best.

I also had problems with a poorly timed jump scare. Jump scares are supposed to be scary, I love it when they scare the pants off of me, but alas the director failed and decided to put the jump scare about five minutes later and absolutely ruin the spook factor.

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” was a very well done film.

Overall, I would give this film four out of five stars mainly for being extremely accurate to the book, not removing a late actor’s work, and ending the series on a high note.

Though I highly recommend this movie, I recommend that you read the books and/or watch the films before you watch this movie (especially if you haven’t seen the other films) because it will help the viewer make more sense of the final film adaptation of one of the most popular book series teens and young adults are reading today.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*