REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

When sitting down to watch The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, it was very difficult to not think of of a television show where the opening would have the narration, 'previously on a very special episode of Blossom.'  The reason being, the first half of the film ended so abruptly without a conclusion that it could own as an individual film.  Normally in a film series the movies should still have an element that makes them viewable as a stand alone feature, but that was not the case in the cinematic division of Suzanne Collins final book in the Hunger Games series.

It points to a bit of a fad, and problem, in modern movie story telling.  Franchises, especially ones that are extremely successful, are difficult to come by.  The solution to this by studios is to bleed the content as far as they can.  The trilogy, as we once knew it, is dead.  Even The Avengers have a ridiculous two part third movie.  I call it ridiculous because there is no main source material that they are sticking with, so why not just make two more movies instead of creating a part one and a part two?

What this exhausting extracting of material leads to is films that feel like they have more in them than is needed.  The best example was the completely unnecessary Hobbit 'trilogy' which did everything it could to recreate the success of the Lord of the Rings series from a singular book that was written in a much different tone and could not translate the same way.  It was obnoxious and downright boring at times.

I personally really liked the first half of Mockingjay, as it was a good character story about the pressures faced by Katniss Everdeen.  The main issue was that blunt ending.  However, when watching the recently released final chapter, the problem of dividing the book into two parts became even more clear.  There were many scenes that felt like filler to justify the two hour plus run-time, and these scenes did nothing to service the central tensions that faced young Everdeen.

Director Francis Lawrence, who also directed the first part of Mockingjay, shows a very talented hand when it comes to building anticipation and delivering on action sequences.  There is one scene in particular where Lawrence plays on the typical Hollywood builds to jumps and leaves them dangling. This leaves the viewer to believe that something may end up happening, but never being able to settle down and guess when everything will hit the fan.

It is this skill that would have made for a very concise and exhilarating feature film if perhaps they had forgone the idea of breaking the novel into two movies.  Everything would have flowed much better, including the music.  The score was such an emotional power in the first part, but it lacked the opportunity and delivery in the second part.

Of course, there was one incredible constant across the entire series, and that was the performance of Jennifer Lawrence.  It is difficult to believe that this young lady in her mid-twenties has won an Oscar and has been nominated for two others.  In teaming up with director David O. Russell this year for the film Joy, it is almost a forgone conclusion that she will be receiving another nom.  Her performance as Katniss has kept pace with her nominated roles, where she is the pure conduit for the audience in experiencing the emotional ups and downs of the film.

Overall, it is a decent film.  The sad part is that the best thing that I am saying about it is decent.  It is a long way from the incredibly successful Catching Fire, but it serves well as a finale.  Unfortunately for audiences, it could have been tighter and would have been better packaged as one epic film instead of two separate parts.  It also would have saved the viewer money by only asking them to pay for one ticket instead of begging for them to pay for two.

Rating - 3 out of 4 stars.