If you've been dying to see the last film in the blockbuster Hunger Games franchise, the odds are in your favor. Mockingjay - Part 2 has hit theaters, concluding the story of Katniss Everdeen and those hot guys she's into (and, I guess, the tyranny of President Snow, the rebellion against him and all that jazz).
Fellow writer Sarah Blaskovich and I have been fans of the film series and, before that, were fans of the books. So what did we think of the cinematic conclusion of this dystopian saga?
(For GuideLive's official critique, check out Chris Vognar's review of the film.)
Sarah: I think it's one of the most unsatisfying endings I've seen in a long time.
I love the Hunger Games series, as much as you can love a franchise about children killing other children while a whole country watches. But Mockingjay Part 2 ended my fairly serious time investment on a sour note.
My biggest disappointment in the ending is that it takes too long. As the filmmakers attempt to button up a four-movie series, they belabor the point in strangely undramatic fashion. Now, I don't believe that the ending ruins the entire franchise. And I think some of the earlier parts of the movie were very good. What'd you think?
Britton: I enjoyed the movie as a whole -- more than you did, it sounds like -- but I agree on the ending. Thing is, I felt that way when reading the book, too. I think the fact that we both had to struggle so much to remember, "Wait, what actually happened in the end of that last book?" is pretty telling. It's a forgettable conclusion to a series that, on the whole, is pretty spectacular.
The stuff leading up to that ending, though, was pretty well done... Mostly. I thought the action was generally great, and it felt more like a war movie than the series ever has.
Stuff happens in Mockingjay that's bad, but in a cool way. For example, there's a scene in a bombed and desolate city square in which our heroes are locked in place as a terrifying, acid-like black goo threatens to kill them all. I don't curse a lot in my day-to-day life, but my response to that scene was, "Oh s---."
Sarah:
It's so exciting to see a book come to life. The effects in
Mockingjay
the movie were, on the whole, better than I dreamed them when I was reading the book! A favorite moment was inside a city square, when machine guns burst out of towering structures, firing erratically as if machines had become human. The movie does a good job of scaring us into asking the question, "What does war look like in the future?"
I gotta hate on one of the effects, however: During a scene in the sewer tunnels, Katniss and her crew fight off swamp monsters that look as though they should be in some dumb video game. The scene is about 5 times longer than it needs to be, and the effects catapulted the scene from real-life horror to no-way-could-this-really-happen. From that point on, I remembered the story was fake. It's fiction! And this story should never stray so far from reality that we feel like it could never happen to us.
Do you agree?
Britton: I agree that the scene was too long, for sure, but I also thought it was enjoyable scene overall. I do understand the video game comparison, though. The whole "This tight corridor is filling up with monsters and there seems to be no escape! Shoot them in the head!" scenario is something that could have been ripped from a game like Doom.
I also watch a lot more fantasy and sci-fi stuff than you do, though, and I think it's a bit easier for me to suspend my disbelief for scenes like that. I can watch those humanoid lizards on screen (who reminded me of the zombie-like monsters in I Am Legend) and accept, for the sake of the fiction, that this is "real" to the characters in that scenario. I make those sorts of logical leaps all the time in the sort of media I consume every day.
What I found less believable was some of the romance. I'm sorry, fangirls, but I've never been Team Peeta. I couldn't always grasp why Katniss was sometimes reacting the way she was around both him and Gale. Did you feel the same way? Is that just something I can't fully understand because I'm a straight dude?
Sarah:
Ugh, no, I totally agree with you. This movie contained the most forced fake love yet.
I won't give away the ending, but I'll just say that our last impression of strong, independent Katniss was, for me, displeasing. And that had a lot to do with an unbelievable storyline about love.
Britton: That said, though, I felt like it was a good adaptation of the book. It's just that the problems I had with reading Mockingjay are magnified a bit when watching it play out on screen.
Sarah: My advice? Re-read all the books if you love The Hunger Games. The experience of reading those three books is more satisfying than the four movies.
