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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)  

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Had avoided everything going into this and just seeing the reviews now. Devin is so spot on here.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/11/19/the-hunger-games-mockingjay-part-2-review-the-girl-on-fire-is-extinguished

"I enjoyed that film’s more languid pace (Part 1) because I assumed it allowed Part 2 to be the more hyperkinetic of the two; we had spent two-plus hours luxuriating in the first two acts of a story (the two films are based on one book, which had been sliced in half) so clearly Part 2 would be act three, an extended climax. Imagine my surprise when the first hour of Part 2 was just more of the same as Part 1 - a lot of talking, a lot of moping, a lot of Katniss making no choices whatsoever.  
 

The film has maybe two action scenes (three if we’re being really generous) but he rushes through them, and even though characters die - real, major characters! - there’s no time to feel the loss.
 

As Mockingjay staggers to its conclusion, Katniss sidelined not just from the action but from any personal agency (and often unconscious), the movie’s final arguments - which would sound incredibly cool and devastating and ballsy if I wrote them out here - become wan checkmarks as the film trudges to the end credits. Philosophically cataclysmic things happen at the end of this movie, but they’re largely brushed aside, never given dramatic weight. The film spends ponderous time on Katniss sitting in the dark between her two boyfriends and then blithely skips past major political moments - a sin that the series had never before committed.
 

Those scenes of Katniss dealing with her boys - with Gale, who has become a hardened military man and with Peeta, who has become a twitchy PTSD case who could be in a psycho Vietnam vet movie from the 70s - come at the expense of the pacing of the film. Katniss leads her team through the Capitol, avoiding traps laid by the gamemasters, but rather than make this a propulsive chase through dangerous city blocks and dark sewer tunnels, Mockingjay Part 2 opts to make it a multi-day slog, with plenty of rest stops along the way. When the group rests for the third time I wondered who the fuck thought this was a good idea, giving this final run all the energy of Frodo and Sam crawling into Mordor."

So many other reviews are commenting on the pacing of this coming to a halt due to the love triangle or the propaganda between Snow & Coin. They also noticed the telling and not showing aspect that I had a major problem with, especially in the climax which was such a cop out.

The last series that did that was Fear The Walking Dead but that had an excuse and didn't have the budget this thing did.

Edited by somebody85
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You know, when they announced they were splitting the book into two movies I optimistically thought it could work, because there was a lot of stuff in the book that happens "offscreen" and they could reasonably fill out two movies if they actually show these events and expand on them - the most important of which, of course, was the actual "war" on the Capitol and the attack on Snow's mansion, because in the book they just sneak in, the bombs fall, Prim dies, etc., and then Katniss wakes up later and learns the war is over and Snow has been taken down. Surely they would expand on that and actually show this battle! It's the big battle that the whole series has been building up with this Down With Snow campaign, and I was a little annoyed when I read the book and the whole thing was just hand-waved away like it wasn't the big climax of the entire freaking story. So I was disappointed to see that the movie actually stuck religiously to the book and had the takeover happen offscreen, which makes this drawn-out movie (both drawn-out movies) seem wasteful. They have four hours of screentime to play with between these two films! Why didn't they take advantage of that to showcase, at least in part, the biggest moment of this "revolution"?

 

I don't know, I liked the movie all right, I guess, but I think it was distracting how much was drawn out that didn't need to be and how much was glossed over that should have used the airtime to show properly, and it just made the split all the more glaringly unnecessary if they weren't even going to make the creative choices to make the most of it. Pacing was a huge issue. Just too much up and down, all over the place, seemingly directionless-even-though-it-isn't plotting, and yes to everyone who said the movie "ended" about 50 times but just kept going. I have to agree that the final scene probably should have been cut. It's how the book ended, I know, but it always felt unnecessary and out of place in the story and it comes off even moreso onscreen. It feels tacked on, inappropriate and almost too cheesy. I also didn't care for how they had Katniss speak the last words from the book to her baby. It was an okay bit of narration to close the book, but it felt forced and silly having her actually say it out loud. The scene right before ("Real or not real?") would have been a better final ending. It's still a bit saccharine but not too much so. Just fade out there and roll credits.

 

Now for the positives. Although I'm not crying for the lack of nonstop action, I did like that there was a little more of it this time. The mutts were especially terrifying. The non-action scenes didn't bore me or anything, though. They were very effective, and some shockingly poignant. The quieter moments all did the trick for me. Katniss and Snow's dynamic is great, and Donald Sutherland especially knocks it out of the park with his quiet dominance. Snow's last moments are just great. You can just see that this is exactly how he would want to go out, and he wouldn't have it any other way. He most definitely got the last laugh, in every sense of the phrase. Katniss's "Goodbye, Gale" actually gave me chills with its clear, unmistakable finality. This was no sad "I don't know how things can ever be the same" goodbye, no tentative "I don't know when we'll ever see each other again" goodbye. This was a definite "I have no intention of ever seeing you again" goodbye. And the way she slowly looks up at him and stares at him for several long seconds, so long it almost seems torturous, before finally saying it? Masterful.

 

I'm not sure what to grade this. I liked it but didn't like it in a way. It was good but not all that good. I think I'll go with a C+. All in all, I'm a little disappointed at the could have been and, frankly, should have been. I do like the more muted approach to the story as compared to the first two movies, because the story here IS muted. It's dark, it's sad, it's war. But I feel like it still could have been, I don't know, more. It could have been bigger, better, more of an "event." I feel like the story, and The Hunger Games, kind of just shuffled off quietly into the night, when it should have gone out with ... I don't know, I don't want to say "a bang," but something that felt deserving of being the cap to the series, that did the first movies justice. This one kind of felt like it didn't. It almost feels like Mockingjay, both parts, was a completely different story that could have been left out altogether.

 

As for "See it or don't see it?" If you're a diehard fan and you just need to watch how it all ends, then go. If this is you, it won't be a waste of your time by any means. You'll probably like it more than I did. If you're a kinda fan and you already saw MJ1, see it but I wouldn't fall over myself rushing to the theater to do so. If you somehow didn't catch MJ1 at all yet, then wait for this one to be released on DVD and watch both back to back. Don't waste your time catching up on MJ1 on DVD now specifically in order to go see this in the theater. If you waited this long already to watch the first part, you can definitely stand to wait a little longer to watch the second. It's not a "must see" kind of movie.

 

For the series:

THG: 4/5 stars, B+ to A-

CF: 4.5/5, A

MJ1: 2.5/5, C

MJ2, 2.75/5, C+

Edited by Nutterbutter
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An effectively satisfying send-off. This isn't the best of the Hunger Games movies (my ranking of them in order of preference: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games, Mockingjay - Part 2, Mockingjay - Part 1), but each of the movies offers high-level entertainment along with some interesting social commentary. This franchise can be commended for successfully accomplishing a lot of things. Throughout the series, the glue that has held the franchise together even during its sluggish sections is Jennifer Lawrence, who has assured that Katniss will go down as one of the most iconic movie heroines of all time. The rest of the cast has been largely reduced to the background this time but make the most of what they're given. I will say that I do get the feeling that this could've been a truly excellent finale had it been one film instead of two (the movies have been my only exposure to the series), as there are stretches where the pacing feels is a bit sluggish while there are other points where it feels rushed (resulting in the material not having quite as strong as an impact as it should). But there's still a lot to appreciate here. Farewell and thanks for the memories, Katniss and friends. It was a fun journey. B+

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Saw this tonight and I thought it was great. I would have changed only two things. First I agree about the battle needing to be shown. It was very anti-climatic. They could have at least shown Snow's men turning on him after the bombing. 

 

Also so I wish they would have shown more of Effie and Haymitch. I felt like they built up two great characters there and then they got nothing in this film. Especially Effie. 

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Seeing this last movie made me realize that this franchise was always going to be held back by its YA trappings. It has interesting plot turns and is reasonably engaging as a rebellion narrative, but the love triangle finally reached Twilight level camp in this movie. People in my audience were audibly snickering whenever Katniss kissed either guy, and I imagine most were wishing they'd just get back to the interesting stuff. The climax is also really silly, a labored effort to get this grim saga to a happily ever after resolution.

The Hunger Games will go down as one of the more unique teen phenomena, but remains below all timer status because of its forced pandering to its audience

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A friend of mine convinced me to go see it again... Since I have seen all of them with him and kind of enjoyed my first viewing I gave it a go.

Big mistake... I might have to downgrade to 6/10. The sloppy execution of crucial scenes towards the end (Prim's death)... the complete absence of any real group dynamic in the team as well as the horrible and inexcusable 1950s ending (I know it is in the book but it would have been so easy to make this less cheesy) made it almost a chord to sit through again. Horrible rewatch value... this two-parter is really going to prevent THG franchise to get into the all-timers lists, I think.

Edited by ShouldIBeHere
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I found myself switching off a lot more than I should have. I know it's been said a billion times before but they really could have made one great film instead of two mediocre ones. 

 

This feels very much like The Matrix Revolutions of THG franchise for me. There's still plenty to enjoy but it was spread far too thinly.

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Summarizing my feelings on MJ Part 2: beginning failed to hold my attention, everything right up until Katniss leaving her friends bored me, climax was exciting and maybe the only good scene in the film, the ending infuriated me. 

 

Oddly enough, the first two acts reminded me of Terminator: Genisys, one of the worst movies of the year so far. It was boringly dull talking scene followed by unimpressive action sequence followed by dull talking scene  followed by unimpressive action sequence. It's like they had a checklist to fulfill and because of that checklisting the scenes lacked any soul whatsoever. 

 

After a good climax, we got a nice twist involving Coin, but you know what they say "nothing good ever lasts", they master the art of shitting the bed with Coin proposing another Hunger Games, I think people could literally hear the sound of my facepalm throughout the entire room, like no one with half a brain would purpose another games, even if it's as some sort of revenge, especially not a supposedly mastermind like Coin. Then Katniss killed Coin (which was super obvious btw), a scene that made me angrier by its hypocrisy. Then the movie hit its low with the prologue, a sequence of pukeable scenes between Peta and Katniss. 

 

JNH score was a standout, totally made up for his uneven music in the franchise; and Jennifer Lawrence was great as always.

 

The bottom line is that Part 2 should have never been a full feature film, it had even less story to tell than Part 1, which was already very thinly storied. Part 2 should have been the last hour, maybe the last 30 minutes in the hands of a good writer, of a 150 minutes movie.

Definitely the worst of the four. 35/100

 

CF 80/100

THG 60/100

MJ1 50/100

MJ2 35/100

Edited by Goffe
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On 20/11/2015 07:51:45, k1stpierre said:

Second biggest criticism was coin. I feel like she was not ever given into how cruel she was in the book. I said one of my drawbacks in part 1 was that they never depicted her dark side and made her come off as a good person. Here, it felt so random and all of a sudden shes off trying to kill  katniss whereas in the book it was not a surprise. Her character was really a big letdown here as she was an interesting yet ironic twist to the story.

 

My only other complaint would be the ending, though im not going to fault them for that since its in the book and when in doubt, just follow the book. I guess my issue is that it felt like they never touched upon how damaged both katniss and peeta are.

Also, this.

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34 minutes ago, Goffe said:

Oddly enough, the first two acts reminded me of Terminator: Genisys, one of the worst movies of the year so far. It was boringly dull talking scene followed by unimpressive action sequence followed by dull talking scene  followed by unimpressive action sequence. It's like they had a checklist to fulfill and because of that checklisting the scenes lacked any soul whatsoever. 


Ughh I hate being reminded of that movie but you are spot on. I wasn't interested in any of it and seeing as I liked all the others, I should have been. Like you said, it was like those same stupid conversations between Sarah, John & "Pops" and I was getting restless leading into "really?!" when they kept happening. I didn't feel anything during the action until they blended into the crowd in Panem, not even during the mutt scene. It was like this character is here....and now they're gone. During the talking scenes, I kept thinking of all the ways this would have been a better movie and none of them involved sitting down to rest in the sewer, or the apartment or wherever else they were.

Doug from Nostalgic Critic pretty much summed up my issues with the dialogue in those scenes between Katniss, Peeta & Gale. It was so dull. In order to forget about this movie which I was still angry about after seeing it, I had to see a new Star Wars TV spot. Dude it really did suck. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZq1FENNL5k

I don't care what the book did, this is one time they should have deviated from the source material and I'm glad to see Lionsgate take a hit at the box office because I don't think word of mouth on this thing is going to be good. No one applauded in my theater.

And yeah the first movie might seem kind of cheesy but this is easily the worst one. More depressing then anything in this movie is we'll never get a good movie that will deliver on that last epic shot of Catching Fire. They had a chance and completely blew it.


 

Edited by somebody85
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Not only is this the worst Hunger Games (and that's saying something), not only is this worse than any of the Hobbits, it's one of the worst films I've seen in my life.  Notjhing happens until about the 90 minute mark and it felt like the film just went on and on.  And the end of it just seemed so silly, so out of place.  It's like the writer just decided that there had to be a twist somehow.  Instead of us seeing a final battle or at least a confrontation between Snow and Katniss, we are left with President Coin telling Katniss that she gets to kill Snow but he tells her that they were both played for fools by Coin.  And so we don't get any final confrontation between them, instead we just see Snow get killed by an angry throng of villagers.  So horribly anti-climactic and so utterly disappointing.  

 

Then there's Gale's exit, which I do not understand why it was written that way.  Somehow it looks like he did something wrong.  WTF.  I mean this is a guy who was fiercely loyal to Katniss all throughout the series and they conveniently cut him out of the picture so that her decision is easy.  

 

You have all this build up for three films and you are waiting for some kind of huge and satisfying conclusion and instead what you get is a bunch of people talking, then talking some more, and more, and more, and more exposition, then Prem dies for reasons unexplained as to how she even got there and then you have the President decide that there's going to be another Hunger Games, after they just spend the last three books being pissed off that there was in the first place.  And the n Katniss throws a tantrum at her cat and even the cat looks at her like, "WTF are you saying?" I have no idea how this series got so popular.  It's absolutely fucking horrible.  

 

Oh, and there's a scene where some albino looking four legged creatures attack them, and they have no guns, no knives and all they do is knock them around a bit.  Yes, a few people die but no one important.  And here's the funny thing, our "heroes" have guns, so why don't they just make a stand and shoot the albino dogs?  Instead they try to run.  STUPID STUPID STUPID.  Who wrote this screenplay, Damon Lindelof?

 

Then finally at the end, we have a Harry Potter ending.  Horrible.

 

I hate this film.  Hate it.

 

0/10

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1 hour ago, baumer said:

Not only is this the worst Hunger Games (and that's saying something), not only is this worse than any of the Hobbits, it's one of the worst films I've seen in my life.  Notjhing happens until about the 90 minute mark and it felt like the film just went on and on.  And the end of it just seemed so silly, so out of place.  It's like the writer just decided that there had to be a twist somehow.  Instead of us seeing a final battle or at least a confrontation between Snow and Katniss, we are left with President Coin telling Katniss that she gets to kill Snow but he tells her that they were both played for fools by Coin.  And so we don't get any final confrontation between them, instead we just see Snow get killed by an angry throng of villagers.  So horribly anti-climactic and so utterly disappointing.  

 

Then there's Gale's exit, which I do not understand why it was written that way.  Somehow it looks like he did something wrong.  WTF.  I mean this is a guy who was fiercely loyal to Katniss all throughout the series and they conveniently cut him out of the picture so that her decision is easy.  

 

You have all this build up for three films and you are waiting for some kind of huge and satisfying conclusion and instead what you get is a bunch of people talking, then talking some more, and more, and more, and more exposition, then Prem dies for reasons unexplained as to how she even got there and then you have the President decide that there's going to be another Hunger Games, after they just spend the last three books being pissed off that there was in the first place.  And the n Katniss throws a tantrum at her cat and even the cat looks at her like, "WTF are you saying?" I have no idea how this series got so popular.  It's absolutely fucking horrible.  

 

Oh, and there's a scene where some albino looking four legged creatures attack them, and they have no guns, no knives and all they do is knock them around a bit.  Yes, a few people die but no one important.  And here's the funny thing, our "heroes" have guns, so why don't they just make a stand and shoot the albino dogs?  Instead they try to run.  STUPID STUPID STUPID.  Who wrote this screenplay, Damon Lindelof?

 

Then finally at the end, we have a Harry Potter ending.  Horrible.

 

I hate this film.  Hate it.

 

0/10

Well I am a true fan and I suppose I can even agree with you on some of this?  Btw, did you read the book?  You would then know why katniss dismissed Gale as 

Spoiler

He was involved in Prim's death.  The bomb thing he was planning in the beginning showed that.  

Quote

 

I rated this movie second best after CF, but now that I think about it, it may actually be third best.  It just didn't keep my attention as much as it should have.  I actually think the trailer made it look better than it was. 

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8 hours ago, baumer said:

Not only is this the worst Hunger Games (and that's saying something), not only is this worse than any of the Hobbits, it's one of the worst films I've seen in my life.

I can't be worse than BotFA. That's mathematically impossible. :P

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