The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) | Movie News & Review

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THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (2015) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

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the hunger games: mockingjay - part 2 (2015) movie

Genre | Science Fiction

Classification | M

Running time | 137 minutes

Released | 19 November 2015

cast

Jennifer Lawrence ... Katniss Everdeen
Josh Hutcherson ... Peeta Mellark
Liam Hemsworth ... Gale Hawthorne
Woody Harrelson ... Haymitch Abernathy
Donald Sutherland ... President Snow
Philip Seymour Hoffman ... Plutarch Heavensbee
Julianne Moore ... President Alma Coin
Willow Shields ... Primrose Everdeen
Sam Claflin ... Finnick Odair
Elizabeth Banks ... Effie Trinket
Jeffrey Wright ... Beetee
Stanley Tucci ... Caesar Flickerman
Jena Malone ... Johanna Mason
Natalie Dormer ... Cressida

director

Francis Lawrence

writer

Peter Craig ... (screenplay) and
Danny Strong ... (screenplay)

Suzanne Collins ... (adaptation)

Suzanne Collins ... (novel)

cinematographer

Jo Willems

music

James Newton Howard

film editor

Alan Edward Bell
Mark Yoshikawa

box office result

Worldwide $653,428,261

Australia $21,422,262

North America $281,723,902

the best dialogue

President Snow: I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your sister. So wasteful. So unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact I was just about issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes.
Katniss Everdeen: You released those parachutes.
President Snow: You really think I gave the order? We both know I'm not above killing children, but I'm not wasteful. I take life for specific reasons, and there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all.
[coughs up blood]
President Snow: I must concede, it was a masterful move on Coin's part. The idea that I was bombing our own helpless children to hold back the rebels. It turned the last of my guards against me. There was no resistance left inside the Capitol or the mansion. Do you know it aired live? There's a particular savvy in that, isn't there? I'm sure she wasn't gunning for your sister, but... these things happen in war. My failure was in being so slow to grasp Coin's plan. She let the Capitol and the Districts destroy one another, then she stepped in to take power with 13's arsenal. Oh, make no mistake, she intends to take my place now. But... I've been watching you. And you watching me. I'm afraid we've both been played for fools.
Katniss Everdeen: I don't believe you.
President Snow: Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we'd agreed never to lie to each other.

President Alma Coin: [spreads her arms] Welcome to the New Panem. Today, on the Avenue of the Tributes, all of Panem, a free Panem, will watch more than a mere spectacle. We are gathered to witness an historic moment of justice. Today, the greatest friend to the revolution will fire the shot to end all wars. May her arrow signify the end of tyranny and the beginning of a new era. Mockingjay, may your aim be as true as your heart is pure.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (2015) MOVIE IMAGES

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THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (2015) STORY SYNOPSIS

Realizing the stakes are no longer just for survival, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) teams up with her closest friends, including Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and Finnick for the ultimate mission. Together, they leave District 13 to liberate the citizens of war-torn Panem and assassinate President Snow, who's obsessed with destroying Katniss. What lies ahead are mortal traps, dangerous enemies and moral choices that will ultimately determine the future of millions.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (2015) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 19 November 2015
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐½

The fourth and final movie in THE HUNGER GAMES series challenges audience expectations of how a “blockbuster” multi-picture franchise should end, as the screenplay remains largely faithful to Suzanne Collins’ literary source material. HUNGER GAMES purists will - more than likely - admire the attempt by Director Francis Lawrence and Screenwriters Peter Craig & Danny Strong to remain faithful to book, but mainstream audiences looking for a sense of satisfaction (on behalf of JLaw’s Katniss Everdeen) may feel short-changed by this approach. If this were not the final film, MOCKINGJAY PART 2 would be commended for such a “downbeat” departure from the norm, but it isn’t and the denouement may leave casual viewers with the impression that it does not justify a four movie arc to deliver the conclusion the producers have gone with.

MOCKINGJAY PART 2 opens immediately following the Capitol reprogrammed Peeta Mellark’s (Josh Hutcherson) attack upon Katniss at the conclusion of MOCKINGJAY PART 1. Katniss remains traumatised by the attack but quickly thrusts herself back into the action in an effort to be useful to President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and her push to overthrow President Snow (Donald Sutherland). The opening scenes of the film allow Katniss to reassess her feelings for both Peeta and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), as she doubts Peeta’s ability to break the mind-altering conditioning that Snow subjected him to during the second film. Her doubt briefly raises the prospect of exploring the feelings she has for Gale, but she soon discovers that the cunning hunter she grew up with has become a cunning strategist who is prepared to sacrifice innocent lives to win the war against Snow.

Despite the best efforts of President Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman in his last role) to keep the “Mockingjay” under lock and key away from the front lines, Katniss will not be denied the opportunity to head for the Capitol in search of retribution against Snow. Realising she can not be reigned in, Coin tasks Plutarch with framing a story that turns whatever Katniss does into political capital for the Rebel cause. Katniss is reunited with Gale, Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) and Cressida (Natalie Dormer) under the command of Boggs (Mahershala Ali) who trail behind the front line troops creating propaganda movies for President Coin. The group are forced to negotiate thousands of booby traps left by Coin’s forces and the stakes are raised when they have to go underground in an effort to make it to avoid all sorts of nasty traps.

There’s no easy fixes in MOCKINGJAY PART 2. No character is safe. The film’s second half spares no one. As mentioned, purists will love this, but casual viewers of THE HUNGER GAMES movies may it a little confusing, as key characters meet their end in a variety of grisly ways. The story makes it clear to the viewer that Coin’s Rebels are going to win this fight, so the determination of Katniss to reach Snow seems a little misguided and a large section of the film’s final act redundant. What would have been nice to see was a little more characterisation, allowing such great actors as Lawrence, Sutherland and Moore to explore the moral dilemmas thrown up by their three different ideologies. Sutherland, in particular, should have been given far more screen time that what he ends up with and the manner in which his character exits the story doesn’t seem worthy of the villainy in which he has engaged throughout THE HUNGER GAMES films.

Technically, MOCKINGJAY PART 2 is a solid piece of movie making. With a screenplay that doesn’t stray too far from the novel, the biggest challenge was to provide enough visual interest across MOCKINGJAY PART 1 and PART 2 to keep the audience interested. A prolonged set piece midway through the film (in the sewers of the Capitol) help to achieve this, as Cinematographer Jo Willems gets the camera nice and close to capture the sense of dread among Katniss and her team as Snow releases a plethora of nasties into the damp, dark recesses below the city. Philip Messina’s production design continues to evolve the Panem aesthetic he created back in 2012 with the first film and has continued across the second, third and now fourth films. James Newton Howard also returns to THE HUNGER GAMES universe a fourth time, providing a slightly more downbeat score that seeks to emphasise the loss felt by Katniss as those around her are sacrificed for the hope a better Panem.

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2 is not the film that movie-goers may have expected, but it remains true to the story that Suzanne Collins set out in her novels. There is no gain without sacrifice and, for Katniss Everdeen, that sacrifice has been great; almost too great to live with. Her desire to be just another casualty of President Snow’s manipulation frees her to make the right and just decision; just as Plutarch Heavensbee suspected she might. Jennifer Lawrence leads from the front (thankfully), but a more satisfying ending would have seen MOCKINGJAY PART 2 transcend from being a middle-of-the-road affair to something that possessed potency and lingered in the memory for longer.