The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Directed by Francis Lawrence.
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland and Liam Hemsworth.
Opens Nov. 19 at local theaters.
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The Hunger Games franchise may have grossed more than $2.2 billion at box offices around the world, and may have dazzled us with ingenious eye candy, but critics and moviegoers alike have come away from the fashion-forward dystopia series with mixed feelings. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 does little to change this.
The story begins right where Mockingjay Part 1 leaves off, with Katniss in the hospital recovering from a near-fatal choking wound inflicted by a brainwashed Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Her onetime fiancee and fellow Hunger Games victor is still suspicious of her as she becomes more of a pawn, err, role model, in the revolution led by President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore, who's assisted by former Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Katniss’s former beau, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth).
While we're rooting for Katniss to storm the capital and bring us the head of President Snow (Donald Sutherland), the story plods along mercilessly. It's only nearly saved by a suspenseful, Aliens-like trek through the tunnels of the Capitol and a scary battle with mutts (white, gangly creatures designed with a mix of CGI and live action). Between sporadic moments of taut suspense, Part 2 heaps on the tragedies and melodrama, and an unrelenting series of exhaustingly narrow escapes that are oddly lacking in adrenaline-fueled action — and are followed by little to no payoff.
Throughout the series, depressing imagery and obvious truisms have made the whole thing feel like a middle-school morality lesson. The series' themes about uncivilized civilization have been writ large ad nauseam, and more effectively depicted in other young adult books decades before, like Lord of the Flies.
Worn-out allegories aside, Mockingjay — Part 2's is nonstop Katniss. There are more close-ups of Lawrence than white roses in President Snow's greenhouse. We see Katniss in badass battle armor, and then we see Katniss with a smart winter sash and vintage waistcoat. We also see Katniss blending with the crowd incognito as a Capitalite in a plush quilted cape provided by Tigris, the facially altered feline femme and Capitol costumer, played sweetly by local actor Eugenie Bondurant — she's onscreen a short time, but is quite memorable.
Back to Lawrence: Once again, JLaw makes the ordeal watchable. Fans have followed her from being a scrappy backwoods hunter and protective big sister to celebrity athlete and rebellion darling, and director Francis Lawrence has made sure to capture around a zillion close-ups of every pout and micro-emotion the Oscar-winning actress expresses (and maybe some boredom). Director Lawrence knows we're still rooting for the teenager from dem hills yonder in District 12 to save the day once again, and the odds are perpetually stacked against her. Still, she never gives up. Katniss reveals humanity and singularity of purpose in the face of wartime atrocities.
On a positive note, Francis Lawrence graces Part 2 with majestic widescreen shots of imposing capital skyscrapers and stunning wintry landscapes (which demand cinema viewing) and entertainingly quirky techie details.
Though all of the films share in common overwrought and grim storytelling, and, most of all, wildly uneven pacing, director Lawrence deserves some credit for his uncompromising depiction of civil war and fascism. Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games books may endure because of their female perspective on what's been typically masculine subject matter in the past. Unfortunately, the anti-climactic tenor of her book's faithful film adaptation, split in two by the opportunistic LionsGate Pictures, does little to counteract the last book's unfavorable reviews.
Still, there's much to enjoy despite the all the inertia. Several of the franchise's A-listers return for the final installment and some actually survive the cataclysmic revolution. Stanley Tucci is still a super-tan Liberace-esque show host with wacky hair and getups, and Elizabeth Banks' Effie Trinkett is lacking a few accessories post-rebellion but still manages to be fabulous, and provide much-needed comic relief. Woody Harrelson is less douche-y and more sympathetic as Katniss's mentor and District 12's elder Hunger Games victor. Jena Malone is deliciously menacing, and of course, Sutherland is the most likable a-hole of all time as Snow.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2015.