The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

It took me about five years, but I finally finished the four-film Hunger Games series, watching The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, yesterday. It was better than Part 1, in that at least had an ending, and the final scenes were thoughtful about power, echoing The Who's line, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

I had to do some catching up as the film began, as it had been awhile and I didn't remember everything that had happened. Basically, Katniss Everdeen is part of rebel alliance, and she is being used as a marketing strategy--it is less about her bow and arrow than her public pronouncements. But she wants to fight, not just be a spokesperson, and smuggles her way into a band of soldiers headed into the Capitol, where the evil President Snow resides. Her interest is to kill him.

Snow has the Capitol residents pull into the city center, allowing the outer portion to be booby-trapped for these soldiers. One of the traps had a mountain of oil spilling into a plaza, another has humanoid "mutts" attacking in the sewers below. I'm not quite sure the strategy made any sense, but it was somewhat entertaining, as a few of the soldiers were picked off and the suspense was well maintained.

The cast is an excellent one, with four Oscar winners (Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Julianne Moore as the rebel leader, Philip Seymour Hoffman, in his last role, and Mahershala Ali), one multi-Oscar nominee (Woody Harrelson), and a Lifetime Achievement Oscar winner (Donald Sutherland as President Snow). Sutherland is at the top of his game, and his every appearance elevated the movie to something grander. Suzanne Collins, the author of the Hunger Games books, has written a new one about Snow's early days, but alas Sutherland would not be right for that part. I loved his reaction when, thinking Lawrence was dead, he's shown she's alive, and he can't help admiring her. And his laugh at the climax of the film is gold.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, this final film is a bit too long, and many of the scenes are too dark to see what's going on--when someone gets killed, you can't tell who until someone else calls out their name. But if the three sequels don't match the quality of the first film, this is usually how it is with these things.