Title: Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 (I don't know a soul within the target group that doesn't
know that Mockingjay part 2 is a part of The Hunger Games Series, but that's fine.)
Genre: Adventure, Sci-fi
Director: Francis Lawrence
Based on: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
IMDb rating: 6,8/10
Rotten tomatoes rating: 70%
My rating: I just can't afford to think like that.
Okay, now that I've more or less recovered from my mourning period over this movie and its concluding the franchise, let's talk about it. Because I have thoughts. A lot of them and I'll probably forget to mention half of them because hahaha I said more or less right? Yep, I'm still an emotional wreck.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this movie, what they cut out, what they added in, and what they kept from the book. Basically everything. And since this is the last movie in the series (as far as I know), I'm not even going to attempt to control my emotions.
The book: I feel obligated to inform you about my opinion of the source material that this movie was based on. Aka let me rave about the fact that this book split the HG fandom in two and whose team I'm on. I loved the book. It made me cry and scream and feel little pin pricks in my heart because of its brutally honest picture of what a war really means. I loved how it wasn't as concerned with entertaining you as it was with giving a message. So MJ haters, feel free to leave now (but I'd appreciate it if you stayed).
(I just realized I hadn't done any official reviews for anything Hunger Games related yet, so I can go all fangirly and insane on you.)
Here starts the spoiler section. *Mockingjay whistle*
First of all, I loved all the cast members in this franchise. They all nail their parts and I love them for it. So let's have a big round of applause for all of our volunteers.
If you've seen the movie, which you have, you know that it kept quite true to the book, except for some things we'll talk about later. I adored how much original dialogue they kept in and how much the events in the movie match the ones in the book.
The movie opens with Prim going to talk to Peeta. I know this was originally Delly Cartwright going to talk to him, but I could live with this. Overall the projection of Peeta's hijacked state is pretty solid.
This brings about my first complaint, though: Hollywood seems to think teenage girls care about two things:
A. boys.
B. character deaths.
Throughout the entire movie, they pay most attention to those things, even though those are not necessarily the main issues in the book. Yes, they did keep in some trauma and politics, but if they gave up anything, it was never the deaths or the romance. I find this a bit insulting. Yes, I'm a teenager. Yes, I like ships and crying, but I'm not that shallow. I get you'll have to cut things out, but rather than ONLY cutting out the deep stuff, I would have preferred a more even division.
The political scenes that were in it were just a treat to me, though. I loved how you got these little insights in Coin's and Snow's power games. When Snow is sitting with his commanders and he asked what they toasted on and eventually he said, "A glorious era coming to its end," you realize that at that point, he knows so well it's over. All scenes with Snow I just devoured. Donald Sutherland really embodies the role and plays him with the perfect amount of dictator sass. His interaction with Katniss in the rose garden and Coin's talk about the last Hunger Games saved the ending a little. (The ending made me very angry, but we'll get there later.)
This film really is a bit of a shipping fest meets war movie, which made for feels meets action. Sounds good, but as I said, it's a bit unbalanced occasionally. The shipping, though!
Yes, Catching Fire was a box of cuteness, but this is so much intenser. When I read the book, in retrospect, I think I sugar coated Peeta's personality a bit. I made him a little less hijacked and gone. The movie does not do that. Literally every time that boy shows his face something heart-breaking happens. When he says he should have given the bread to the pig and Katniss is saying he gave it to her because he was kind, I was just overcome with feels. And don't even get me started on the kiss or the hug or the inclusion of the conversation between Peeta and Gale that I adored in the book.
The district 2 scene was one of my absolute favorites. They added a line in this, that wasn't dialogue but monolog in the book and it sent chills down my spine. The setting is wonderful and the interaction between Gale and Katniss during the bombing stays extremely true to the book's meaning. "It's always a person." That's what the Games are all about and I think that's one of the last moments in the movie where they're so strongly focusing on the brokenness of Katniss' character.
Let's get there now. I feel ready. I was not content with the way they handled chapter 24 to 27. If you remember, chapter 24 is the part in the City Circle where Prim dies and Gale asks her to shoot him and everything basically collapses. Now in the book, this seemed to me like a very grand scene. The ground rips open, people lay dead on the ground, there's this purple gas killing everyone and spraying blood. It's super intense and I remember when I first read it, I couldn't even keep track of the events. In the movie, it's just shooting and stuff blowing up and that felt very anticlimactic to me. The part with the Capitol children and Prim was absolutely perfect, though.
But that's not all. In the first movie, they established Katniss as the broken person she is in the book. BUT they don't set this through in the second part. She doesn't hide in closets or is branded as mentally unstable. She also doesn't change into what she called 'a fire mutt' in the book and neither does Peeta. She barely seems really sad about Prim's death save for Buttercup's part. (Good job, guys.) She isn't locked up in her old room and tries to commit suicide and doesn't stare into the fire in 12. I know a lot of fans were angry about these very parts of the book, but they meant a lot to me. A. Because it shows just how much Katniss cares about Prim. B. Because it's honest: no sugar coating, this is war and it sucks. C. Because they were sickly ironic: the girl on fire dissolves into flame, Katniss becomes the mother she so detested for her weakness. We can't always choose what we become because our experiences scar and shape us.
The movie covers everything with a neat layer of sweetness: the girl in the coat doesn't die, Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss have comfy diners together, there're no suicidal thoughts. I get that some of these decisions were made to prevent an R-rating, but this doesn't go for everything.
One thing did really get me: Katniss' mom treating her wounds and when she said, "Mom," her lack of response. This hit me so hard because if my younger sibling died the only person I would want in the world would be my mom.
Another thing: I loved Gale's goodbye scene, mainly because of the facial expressions. It was like reading the book in just the eyes of those two actors. And Effie's goodbye to Katniss, telling her that she hopes she will find the life of a victor. (Not in the book, but fully appreciated.)
Finnick's death made me choke on sobs, mostly because I was whisper-yelling to him the entire scene in the sewers. I knew exactly what would happen but couldn't really let go of this sliver of hope. And we all know it: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.
Jenna Malone nails it as Johanna Mason and they kept in a lot of the scenes that I liked with her. What I did hate was how they cut out the training and Peeta's cake skills. It's not even that important, I just wanted to see that beautiful cake and Katniss and Johanna bonding moments.
Another important issue: Do I think splitting the book in two was a good decision? Yes and No. There are a lot of events taking place in Mockingjay, so I don't think one movie would have worked (unless it were four hours long). I think they cut it in the wrong place. I have always believed Mockingjay should be split at Katniss getting shot in 2. It would have set the tone, the first movie wouldn't have been so focused on Peeta, and this part would have had more time for the training and the ending.
All in all, this movie had its ups and downs for me. It wasn't as good as Catching Fire, but it was decent. A decent ending to a solid franchise which soundtracks will make me cry whenever they pop up on TV in the near future. My mourning period is over and I feel like I can move on. (Until I reread the books, than I will die once more.)
Word count:
3x Always
3x Hope
5x Fire
6x Mockingjay
8x Real
6x Games
Yes, Catching Fire was a box of cuteness, but this is so much intenser. When I read the book, in retrospect, I think I sugar coated Peeta's personality a bit. I made him a little less hijacked and gone. The movie does not do that. Literally every time that boy shows his face something heart-breaking happens. When he says he should have given the bread to the pig and Katniss is saying he gave it to her because he was kind, I was just overcome with feels. And don't even get me started on the kiss or the hug or the inclusion of the conversation between Peeta and Gale that I adored in the book.
The district 2 scene was one of my absolute favorites. They added a line in this, that wasn't dialogue but monolog in the book and it sent chills down my spine. The setting is wonderful and the interaction between Gale and Katniss during the bombing stays extremely true to the book's meaning. "It's always a person." That's what the Games are all about and I think that's one of the last moments in the movie where they're so strongly focusing on the brokenness of Katniss' character.
Let's get there now. I feel ready. I was not content with the way they handled chapter 24 to 27. If you remember, chapter 24 is the part in the City Circle where Prim dies and Gale asks her to shoot him and everything basically collapses. Now in the book, this seemed to me like a very grand scene. The ground rips open, people lay dead on the ground, there's this purple gas killing everyone and spraying blood. It's super intense and I remember when I first read it, I couldn't even keep track of the events. In the movie, it's just shooting and stuff blowing up and that felt very anticlimactic to me. The part with the Capitol children and Prim was absolutely perfect, though.
But that's not all. In the first movie, they established Katniss as the broken person she is in the book. BUT they don't set this through in the second part. She doesn't hide in closets or is branded as mentally unstable. She also doesn't change into what she called 'a fire mutt' in the book and neither does Peeta. She barely seems really sad about Prim's death save for Buttercup's part. (Good job, guys.) She isn't locked up in her old room and tries to commit suicide and doesn't stare into the fire in 12. I know a lot of fans were angry about these very parts of the book, but they meant a lot to me. A. Because it shows just how much Katniss cares about Prim. B. Because it's honest: no sugar coating, this is war and it sucks. C. Because they were sickly ironic: the girl on fire dissolves into flame, Katniss becomes the mother she so detested for her weakness. We can't always choose what we become because our experiences scar and shape us.
The movie covers everything with a neat layer of sweetness: the girl in the coat doesn't die, Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss have comfy diners together, there're no suicidal thoughts. I get that some of these decisions were made to prevent an R-rating, but this doesn't go for everything.
One thing did really get me: Katniss' mom treating her wounds and when she said, "Mom," her lack of response. This hit me so hard because if my younger sibling died the only person I would want in the world would be my mom.
Another thing: I loved Gale's goodbye scene, mainly because of the facial expressions. It was like reading the book in just the eyes of those two actors. And Effie's goodbye to Katniss, telling her that she hopes she will find the life of a victor. (Not in the book, but fully appreciated.)
Finnick's death made me choke on sobs, mostly because I was whisper-yelling to him the entire scene in the sewers. I knew exactly what would happen but couldn't really let go of this sliver of hope. And we all know it: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear.
Jenna Malone nails it as Johanna Mason and they kept in a lot of the scenes that I liked with her. What I did hate was how they cut out the training and Peeta's cake skills. It's not even that important, I just wanted to see that beautiful cake and Katniss and Johanna bonding moments.
Another important issue: Do I think splitting the book in two was a good decision? Yes and No. There are a lot of events taking place in Mockingjay, so I don't think one movie would have worked (unless it were four hours long). I think they cut it in the wrong place. I have always believed Mockingjay should be split at Katniss getting shot in 2. It would have set the tone, the first movie wouldn't have been so focused on Peeta, and this part would have had more time for the training and the ending.
All in all, this movie had its ups and downs for me. It wasn't as good as Catching Fire, but it was decent. A decent ending to a solid franchise which soundtracks will make me cry whenever they pop up on TV in the near future. My mourning period is over and I feel like I can move on. (Until I reread the books, than I will die once more.)
Word count:
3x Always
3x Hope
5x Fire
6x Mockingjay
8x Real
6x Games
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