REVIEW: “Mockingjay Part 2” a mockery of the series

By Camille Renaud,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

“Mockingjay Part 2” was meant to be the grand finale to the exciting “Hunger Games” series, but this production was not nearly as impressive as the last three showings. Splitting up the last book, “Mockingjay,” into two movies of any series was risky because the ‘wow’ aspect had to be in both parts, and while Part 1 may have wooed some, the final part was not as appealing.

Francis Lawrence’s two hour and 17 minute production of the final war between the Districts and the Capital brought Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) together with her fellow rebels, including Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), once again to attempt to defeat the evil President Snow.

On the way to Snow’s mansion, the gamemakers of the Capital, along with Snow, make the city surrounding the mansion into an arena and watch Katniss’ crew walk into the death traps that they have set in the city.

Having seen the first movie, “Hunger Games,” and second movie, “Catching Fire,” I thought that two movies that showed people fighting it out in an arena was quite enough. I had hoped the adaptation of the third book would be different, but it was not. This pattern may have been the director’s goal–to show that world always goes back to what it knows–but for a trilogy, a little variety would have been nice.

The first part of the movie leading up to the journey to the Capital was slow-moving and suspenseful. In some cases, movies that have a lot of action need a break from all of the noise, but the prolonged view of nothing happening on the screen was not enjoyable. There were many points in the movie where I thought that I may have missed or forgotten something crucial that had happened, but no–nothing had happened yet.

Throughout the entire series, the question has remained: who will Katniss choose? Peeta or Gale?

The answer was drawn-out; Katniss continued to kiss Gale, then Peeta, then Gale, then Peeta, and the audience was left wondering why she keeping dragging one of them along. The prolonged love triangle between the three overshadowed some of the more important details in the movie that may have been missed because more focus was on the romantic aspects.

While the action in the movie during the climax was much-needed, and the special effects were extremely impressive, some of the violence was stepped up to the next level of scary. Some of the fight scenes are too long to sit through with your eyes open.

Although there were plenty of faults, the movie wasn’t all bad. As previously mentioned, the special effects were outstanding, from the bird’s eye view of the Capital to the various weapons and attacks made against Katniss and her crew.

As always, Jennifer Lawrence had a great performance. Her dramatic and strong presence as a female lead character once again reinforced the brilliant choice of her as Katniss Everdeen. For these neo-feminist times, she was the poster child heroine for this film.

The very end of the movie wrapped the whole trilogy up nicely which, although a little bit cheesy, was satisfying for someone who does not like cliffhangers or unanswered questions. The movie followed the plot and structure that made the first three showings great; it just had plenty of minor issues that made the whole production suffer.