While most film franchises based off of ‘Young Adult’ book
series have had mixed results in terms of financial and critical success, with
some not even making it past one film, ‘The Hunger Games’ series, based off of
the books of the same name by Suzanne Collins, has easily been the most
successful of these franchises since it started three years ago. With its
strong story and characters, the series is very much deserving of its status of
being a ‘global phenomenon’ just like ‘Harry Potter’ was in the decade before
the release of the first ‘Hunger Games’ film in 2012. Though for most people,
the series really established itself as a premier franchise with its second
installment, ‘Catching Fire’. For the record, the first film was very much a critical
and commercial success when it was released in March 2012 but it did attract
some polarizing responses from audiences, mostly due to the film’s ‘shaky cam’
style and rapid editing during the action sequences. But as for ‘Catching Fire’,
the first in the series to be directed by Francis Lawrence (no relation to
series star Jennifer Lawrence), it’s pretty much universally regarded as the
better film, which is rather ironic considering that the book it was based off
of was arguably the least popular entry of the series. The success of ‘Catching
Fire’ resulted in Lawrence being brought back to direct the final installment
of the series, ‘Mockingjay’. But then things got a bit controversial when it
was announced that ‘Mockingjay’ would be split into two films.
Of course the practice of splitting the final installment of
a series into two films was kick-started by the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise when
it split its final book, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, into two
films. But ultimately the reason why that was actually a good thing was because
the book did have enough material to justify two films. Other franchises then
followed suit but it was clear that these series’ final installments weren’t
big enough to be split into two films. That was very much true with the ‘Twilight’
series with ‘Breaking Dawn’ and without them even being released yet, the same
will clearly be said for the ‘Divergent’ series with ‘Allegiant’ and its second
part, ‘Ascendant’. As for ‘The Hunger Games’, the same general argument came
up; that ‘Mockingjay’ simply didn’t have enough in it for two films. I on the
other hand was a bit more optimistic after coming across an article that stated
that the main reason why this decision was made was so that the filmmakers could
expand upon the plot in ways that Collins couldn’t when she wrote the book due
to the limitation of having to cram it all into just one book. Ultimately
though, the skepticism towards this decision still stood and that was made even
more evident by the less positive reaction towards last year’s ‘Mockingjay Part
1’, though I felt that it was still really good even if it was more about the
series’ politics than the action. Now we finally come to the last installment
of the ‘Hunger Games’ film series, ‘Mockingjay Part 2’, and… I finally see why
this should’ve just been one film. For the record, I still really liked this
film like I did the previous three but ultimately I feel that this is the
weakest of the series as the complications of ‘Mockingjay’ being split into two
films finally start to take effect.
‘Part 1’ of ‘Mockingjay’ saw Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer
Lawrence), survivor of the 74th and 75th ‘Hunger Games’,
slowly but surely becoming the ‘Mockingjay’, the face of the growing rebellion
of the citizens of Panem against the Capitol and their dictatorial leader,
President Snow (Donald Sutherland). During this time, Katniss’ main love
interest Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), who had been captured by the Capitol
during the events of ‘Catching Fire’ and turned into a ‘puppet’ for Snow, had been
rescued but was revealed to have been brainwashed by Snow in order to kill
Katniss. As Part 2 begins, the rebels truly begin their attack on the Capitol
but after they destroy the Capitol’s primary weapons supply in District 2,
Katniss’ request to go after Snow is declined by rebel leader President Alma
Coin (Julianne Moore), who tells her that she will instead be maintained as the
symbol of the revolution. Going against Coin’s orders, Katniss sneaks into
District 2 where she is assigned into ‘Star Squad 451’, along with her best
friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and, later on, Peeta, despite the fact
that his ‘brainwashing’ is still partially in effect, therefore making him a
liability for the squad. Despite this, Katniss ventures forward to the Capitol
in order to finally kill President Snow and bring his tyrannical rule to an
end. But after a while, she and her closest friends and allies soon begin to
truly be affected by the horrors that have come from this war between the
Rebels and the Capitol.
Whereas ‘Mockingjay Part I’ was more about the political
side to the growing rebellion and the propaganda that both the Rebels and the
Capitol were spreading in order to sway people to their sides, ‘Mockingjay Part
2’ is very much focused on the action. And with that in mind, the action
sequences are pretty darn good. The film is definitely well-directed just like
the previous two films, proving that the addition of Francis Lawrence as
director was arguably the best thing that could’ve ever happened to this
franchise. However, while the film is very much well-directed, the plot sort of
suffers a bit compared to previous films. To put it bluntly, the film’s
emotional beats don’t really hit on the level that the film was trying to
achieve. This is primarily the result of two things; A.) The aforementioned ‘action-oriented’
pacing and B.) The fact that the film is primarily focused around Katniss.
Katniss is very much the main character of the film and is in nearly every
scene in the film. But because she’s focused on so much, there are times where
she actually overshadows some of the other characters. Certain characters like
Johanna and Haymitch are only in the film for brief amounts of time and this
gets even more problematic when other characters end up biting the dust. Don’t worry
I won’t reveal who dies for those who haven’t read the book but with that said,
I feel that the major deaths in this film didn’t really get the attention that
they should’ve gotten, particularly a very important death that should be very
personal to Katniss and yet really only gets one major scene in which she is
shown to be heavily affected by it.
The best thing that comes from the film’s overt focus on
Katniss is that, because she truly is the main star of the film, this is very
much Jennifer Lawrence’s film. She’s always been terrific in the role, even though
the character sort of lost her edge in the first ‘Mockingjay’ film due to her
being so concerned about making sure Peeta was rescued from the Capitol. Thankfully
that isn’t as much an issue this time, however, and this can literally be
described as a case where Jennifer Lawrence is both figuratively and literally
carrying the film, and pretty much the entire franchise, on her back. The only
other member of the cast who gets screen-time that’s anywhere close to Lawrence’s
is Josh Hutcherson as Peeta. Hutcherson has definitely grown the most out of
anyone in this cast to the point where I’d argued that he was actually the
standout of ‘Mockingjay Part I’. Hutcherson is equally terrific here as Peeta
might actually have more to work with than Lawrence given the fact that the
character continually runs the risk of jeopardizing the whole mission due to
his brainwashing by one of cinema’s best villains in recent years. Yes Donald
Sutherland has been particularly great in these films as the truly despicable
SOB Snow, who somehow always manages to maintain his cool no matter what the
situation is. Of course the rest of the cast is great as well, as they’ve been
throughout the entire series, but as I noted earlier, quite a few of these
characters are generally downplayed in favor of Katniss.
Despite what I’ve said in this review, I want to make it
clear that I do not ‘hate’ this film. I still really like it for a lot of the
things that made the previous films great. Francis Lawrence’s direction is once
again excellent, the film has some really well-done action sequences, and the
film’s cast is outstanding, particularly Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson,
and Donald Sutherland. But at the same time, this actually ends up being my
least favorite of the four films and ultimately this is because I now realize
that this really should’ve just been one film. And I’m not saying that because the
first film was more focused on the politics and this film was more
action-oriented. The real reason why I think this should’ve been one film is
because due to this film’s action-heavy pacing, most of the set-up for this
film was a result of the first film, meaning that there’s not as much character
development in this one. And because the film is focused more on Katniss than
anyone else, certain character deaths don’t get as much focus as they should’ve
gotten. In other words, if this was just one film, then maybe the characters
that do die would’ve gotten more screen-time and therefore their deaths would’ve
been more impactful. Again, I do still like the film and very much feel that ‘The
Hunger Games’ is easily the best franchise of its ‘genre’ after ‘Harry Potter’,
even though I don’t like referring to the latter as being part of the ‘Young
Adult’ genre. But ultimately ‘Mockingjay Part 2’, while it does do its job at
being the finale to this franchise, doesn’t really deliver on the epic finality
that it was trying to achieve.
Rating: 3.5/5
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