Mockingjay part 2 is the last movie of the Hunger Games Franchise, Katniss Everdeen has found Peeta, the rebellion is starting to win and is ready to face off against the Evil President Snow but the journey towards peace might be more complicated than she originally thought.
For this review I'm actually want to start out with the bad of the movie, now before you shoot me Mocking jay part two is not a bad movie, it's actually a pretty solid movie and I quite liked it, I just have a lot more to say about the negatives of this movie than I do the positives. Not that I have many negatives, I actually only have three but they are still major ones.
Mockingjay did not need to be split into two movies. If Mockingjay part 1 was a movie without it's third act than Mockingjay is the third act of a movie, what would have been at the most only thirty minutes blown up to a two hour and ten minute movie. While it's not bad but it's really jarring in terms of structure and pacing especially in the beginning where it just abruptly picks up from the last scene of the movie and they have to stretch out the climax, falling action and conclusion into a longer than necessary runtime. This could have been done in a space of ninety minutes without anything being loss. In fact the movie feels almost too stretched out as throughout half the movie it feels as if nothing happens or things slow down to a grinding holt.
Jennifer Lawrence is still miscast as Katniss Everdeen. Now a huge positive of the movie is that every actor is really good in this movie and even those who don't have a lot to do like Michelle Forbes as Lieutenant Jackson still make a good impact. Jennifer Lawrence , who especially in comedies is a good actress, is really flat and has an almost non-existent personality in this. Now I know for a movie Katniss wouldn't have her narration like she does in the book and would come off on the outside perspective as very quiet and super serious. Yet an actor can still play a reserved or stoic character and still have them be interesting or at the very least be a character and have emotions, case in point Hayley Atwell who plays Peggy Carter plays her as very emotionally reserved and serious person yet still makes her a real human being with depth and believability that Lawrence should have brought to this role yet didn't or couldn't.
The last major issue is that the movie isn't dull by any means it feels like one big anti-climax. A lot of things you can tell that were supposed to be epic, shocking or just stir any big emotions from the audience were just meh. They were either done alright but that left you feeling more 'meh' than angry,sad, happy, excited etc. or were outright done poorly. I don't want to give anything away for people who haven't seen it but their are a few character deaths within this movie two of which stand out to me as the two things I just mentioned. The first one is during the march to president Snow's mansion which was done passably but it didn't have much emotional impact even though in light of the whole series should have been one of the most devastating moments in the entire movie. The second was done very cheesy for a character who while had a character we didn't know but for five minutes. The action itself while there was more than Mockingjay part 1 there were only two that were all that memorable and everything else was either forgettable and lackluster.
Now before it sounds as if I am tearing this movie apart for the most part this was a well-constructed, well acted, and well written movie. The cinematography, the special effects, music and directing of this movie was really good. The monsters looked real and never looked fake, the war torn setting of the capital was nice too look at and the music gave you the feelings war is supposed to make you feel despair, sadness and even confusion.
Yet the best part of this movie was the acting, as I said even the smallest actors with the smallest bit parts gave you something to latch on too even if they were basically Star Trek redshirts. Yet of the main cast Josh Hutcherson and especially Donald Sutherland were probably the best. Josh Hutcherson made you feel both sympathy for Peeta and made you understand what he was going through yet also fear and anger at his actions as you genuinely didn't know what this guy was going to do next. Donald Sutherland's Snow was probably the best in this movie, while you still got the cold, intimidating version of the character you also got the sense of fragility and fear in the way that made you believe Snow was not the 'nothing can touch me' evil tyrant like in the last movies but just a human being who could tell his time was up but didn't want to believe and at the end accepts it with hints of insanity and even some remorse. I felt more of a attachment to President Snow than I did for Katniss in the entire movie.
I also loved the relationship between Peeta and Katniss in the movie. It's sweet, heartbreaking, tragic and heartwarming all in the same go. Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence do have nice chemistry and throughout the whole movie I was just waiting for these two to get together because to me they were right for each other. I loved the ending with these two as you felt that despite what they went through they could get through life together and are one of my favorite movie couples in recent memory even with the whole Gale-love-triangle thing they were my favorite part of the movie.
Overall I give this movie a 7/10- This is a movie won't end up on anybody's 'worst of' end of the years list as it is too good for that but doesn't do anything to push itself to 'best of' the year status. Plus this movie didn't need to be split into two parts to the point where I think it weakened the movie rather than strengthen it and I'm a person who didn't mind it when they split 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight' into two movies. I do recommend waiting to rent it on Demand, buy the DVD or even wait until Netflix to see but if you a fan of the franchise I do recommend it in theaters.
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