I had not been privy to The Hunger Games book series until the announcement of the film series. I read what it was about and it intrigued me. I mean, 25 people out to kill the shit out of each other where only one can survive sounded like a bloody good time. So, I read the first book and I was a huge fan. Then, after seeing the first movie, I liked it... but it fell under the common curse that the book was far superior to the movie. I didn't have an opportunity to read the second or third books, but Catching Fire is my favorite movie of the bunch. And while Mockingjay Part 1 was a decent set-up movie, it seemed to drag on a little bit too long and was fairly evident that it didn't need to be split into two films. This may have been why Part 2 was so fundamentally underwhelming. While I thought the conclusion to the saga was a pretty good one, the film itself is just kind of a muddy, sloppy, mundane film.
Part 2 begins right when Part 1 leaves off. Katniss is in the hospital after being attacked by a brainwashed Peeta. This isn't the only time in the film that a bunch of people will die and Katniss will be knocked out only to wake up later in the hospital. The film uses this crutch three times. There will be a big action sequence commencing, then something mildly violent will happen to Katniss and she will wake up in the hospital hours, even days later and we don't get to see the rest of the fracas. The rebels of each district are finally ready to attack the capitol, yet the capitol isn't going down without a fight. The gamemakers have set traps every ten feet outside of President Snow's mansion for a good hundred blocks. They're going to watch the rebels kill themselves on television. The president of the rebellion (Julianne Moore) doesn't want Katniss to fight because she needs to be the face of the new world, but we know Katniss better than that. She escapes to fight along side *shudder* Gale and co. And that's it. The story wraps up. People die. People survive. There are zombies under the ground. There's a scary kind of oil that kills people. And everyone is super serious.
I think what just didn't jive with me is the lack of fun everyone seemed to be having. There's Katniss who is carrying the entire weight of the rebellion and the deaths of those fighting for the cause under her shoulders, so it makes sense that she's not very happy. Peeta is confused about who everyone is as he's trying to make sense of reality after having been brainwashed. Gale is a whiny little Twilight bitch who seriously needed to get killed in a gruesome way. And everyone else is just humorless. Yes, there's serious shit happening around the characters, but the other films had more fun. With character actors like Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, and Elizabeth Banks there was an aura of fun surrounding the horrific events of the stories. But, all three of these characters have a collected screen time of probably five minutes. When there isn't a lot of fun characters, things get too serious, and the dialogue gets really hokey. There are some very bad lines in this film delivered extra serious. This shouldn't be the source of the fun of the film.
There's also not a lot of action in this film... probably due to the fact that its been drawn out to make an entire second film, but the action that does occur onscreen is very choppy and hard to follow. We're given these characters to follow, but in one of the craziest and scariest scenes of the movie, there's so much chaos and quick camera zips that when people get killed, you can't even tell who it is. You have to count the survivors minutes after the action has ceased. Then, there's the ending that felt to me like it was very anti-climactic. I haven't read the book, but in the middle of the surge on the mansion... once again Katniss gets knocked out... and everything is recapped to her. We don't get to see the aftermath. We don't get to see the entire moment we've been waiting three films to see. It felt unfair and like it would work much better in a book than onscreen. And the very last scene before the credits is the dumbest thing in all of the movies (yes, even dumber than Gale's entire being).
It isn't all bad, it's a still a fun story, I just felt like the movie wasn't handled as smoothly as it could've been. Really, the greed of splitting it up into two films hindered it more than it helped it (other than financially), and I'm sure they're cooking up a few idiotic sequels and spinoffs. But, overall the franchise is much better than most young adult franchises and even the worst parts of the film are better than just the trailer of the new Divergent film. I'm also guessing it works better as book... and not split into two.
C
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