The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2

Dir: Francis Lawrence

2015

**

After watching the final part of the The Hunger Games it is abundantly clear that there was no reason to split Mockingjay into two parts. Harry Potter started it, maybe due to the length of Deathly Hallows it was granted, Twilight followed suit unnecessarily and The Hunger Games should have learnt from their mistake. The cash in paid off or course, people wanted to see the conclusion but interestingly The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 had the smallest cinema takings of all the four Hunger Games films. Much like with the Twilight series, The Hunger Games suffered from having way too much filler and not enough action. I'm not knocking the drama or the idea and I'm not saying it should have been explosion after explosion but many of the scenes between the action sequences were very long and very boring. A punchy script would have helped but I'm afraid there wasn't even a hint of one in either of the four films. I've said my piece regarding the story's theme and my dislike for 'Young adult' literature in my reviews of the previous films and while I thought the conclusion was quite powerful, it wasn't given the treatment it really deserved so a twist that should have had quite the impact turned out to be a huge anti-climax. I've not read the books (and nor am I interested in doing so) but I almost felt like I had, it was that predictable. I think there could be something inherently clever about the story but what little interest I had was diminished by a painfully slow pace, a whispering script and a shockingly familiarity to other, much better films. I sure it wasn't easy trying to piece together a film after the sad and unexpected death of one of the main characters, the brilliant and sorely missed Philip Seymour Hoffman. Some of these scenes really don't fit, hard to avoid but still, I think they could have done better and it is sad that such a great actor has a lazy, cash-hungry mega-franchise installment as their swansong.