The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (a preposterously long title for a film if I’ve ever seen one) finally brings a conclusion to the Hunger Games film series in…well, I’m not really sure what to say about that. Suffice to say the themes of the film are taken to their final conclusions, there’s a lot of young adult sappy romantic talk in the most egregiously inappropriate of places, and many parts seem more designed to save money on production costs than actually making a good film. I mean, seriously, extended sequences in underground tunnels has never, ever been done in an action film before, right? Also, some people die, unsurprisingly.
All of this would be fine, of course, provided I could remember what happened in Part 1, but I honestly had a hard time remembering the first two hours of this 4-hour long film. Subsequently, I had little investment in character deaths or parting, at all. Part 2 provides no luxuries to the audience – you either know what’s happened in the previous part, or you don’t. I remember a whole lot of people talking in bunkers and getting bombed, not so much anything exciting happening, and I guess that’s why I have such a disconnect with this film: I’m missing half a film. And, I can’t imagine a lot of moviegoers were too dissimilar to me, since the year-apart release schedule contributes to this problem. We get all climax and nothing else, which confused me to no end.
As a side note: I saw Mockingjay: Part 1 approximately a year ago, so I experienced the same thing as moviegoers who saw both in theaters in whatever November you saw them in.
An even greater problem? Cutting a film in half to release it twice, and then not editing said movie to reflect the fact that it is now two films instead of one. I absolutely hate this trend, mostly because only money justifies this silly decision – the film suffers as a result. I’ll cite a few more examples of this: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows suffers greatly from chopping the last entry of the series in half, to the point where I remember my brother being really, really confused as to what was happening. These “cuts” tend to chop out all the character development and plot, so we’re left with extended combat sequences and the fruition of what occurred before. Unfortunately, I can’t just go flip through the pages to re-read what I forgot, so you just get bewildered audience members! I read the books already, but my brother did not, so you can imagine his reaction (“worst film ever” isn’t too far off).
A similar crisis occurs in The Hobbit’s unnecessary trilogy. I enjoyed those films, of course, because Peter Jackson does handle editing, pacing, and script-writing well even when extending a story past its natural breaking point. But, even I have to say The Battle of the Five Armies is cutting a second Hobbit film in two, and not to very pretty results. The extended editions of both those films (Desolation of Smaug and the aforementioned) do transform them into full standalone films, but it’s still incredibly jarring and weird to have an exhausting 2 hour war sequence take up the majority of the running time. I kinda hate this happened, though I think Jackson did a much better job of it than other franchises – either way, it dilutes the film with tons of baggage.
So, in that spirit, I can’t really figure out whether the entirety of Mockingjay is, in fact, a good film. It might be, and I’m definitely not saying that a four hour plus conclusion to a trilogy can’t be good (see: Return of the King Extended Edition), but the way in which we’ve been given this last part does not exactly elevate a person’s opinion of the film. That especially goes for people less invested in Katniss Everdeen and her grand exploits. I, for one, don’t care much for this character (as I’ve stated in previous writings long ago), but I still think the first two films worked purely on the level of entertainment. I accept the sappy romance angle, and the whole “cycles of violence!” theme running through the series. That said, from the Part 2 I just watched, somebody really wanted to turn a YA novel series into The Dark Knight a little too much.
Regardless, the film’s still entertaining, and I imagine the full film can now provide us with a lot of enjoyment if somebody could just, you know, cut both parts together into a single work (thanks Internet!). It’s just unfortunate that I watched half a film and lacked pretty much any context to care about what was happening as a result. I’m not saying it affected the box office results or anything, but it didn’t do as well as they thought it would. I think people really dislike this, and I certainly do!
