I saw “Mockingjay: Part 2” today, or as it would be more aptly entitled, “Climax and Conclusion: The Young Adult Film.” Let me say, before I go any further, that I have seen only one Hunger Games film, and it was the first one, when it first came out on DVD. I have also only read one of the books, which was also the first one, and I read that right before I saw the film. I was caught up to the events of this film in a frenzied, rushed recap by my sister on the way to the theatre. Hunger Games fans, know that I’m going into this one with very little personal history with the source material.
The score for this film is gorgeous. It’s sweeping, exhilarating, calming, and heartbreaking, and complements every scene. It is easily the best part of the film.
There is an action sequence that spans several scenes that is fast-paced to the point of being frantic. It’s chaotic, intense, and very rarely lets up. It doesn’t take enough of a breath to allow the audience to do the same, and the result is very exciting.
Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson were quite good.
That’s the good. On to the rest.
I do not have a memory of the last time I watched a movie that was this painfully easy to predict. Nearly every single scene has several moments that are foreshadowed to such a degree as to be impossible to ignore. There is no subtlety to be found here. There are moments when a character’s lines, the shots in the scene, and, of course, the soundtrack make it painfully obvious what is about to happen. The ultimate “twist” of the film became very clear during the first full scene with the character who is the focus of said “twist,” and some exaggerated touchy-feely nonsense in the TRAILER foreshadows a bad thing that happens in the film (I won’t spoil it, for the sake of fairness, but it wasn’t subtle.).
The score has to do most of the acting in the scenes. Not to hate on Jennifer Lawrence – I’m sure she’s great, and everyone loves her- but her dialogue is not cleverly written, and she is very difficult to connect with. She comes off as kind of a jerk, actually, and a mindless pawn of people playing a game that she doesn’t understand. I was under the impression that she was supposed to be a strong female character, but from what I saw she really is little more than a Bella Swan with a fresh coat of paint and a bow and arrow.
The camerawork is nice, if melodramatic, apart from the sequences of shot/reverse shot that seemed more at home in the Star Wars prequels.
Look, I’m well aware that I came into this with an outsider’s perspective. I don’t care about the books, and I don’t particularly care about the films, but I was something of a blank slate coming into this film, ready for the story to imprint itself upon me, and leave a great impression. Instead, I am left with a notion of confusion as to why this series is considered the mold from which all of the other Young Adult post-apocalyptic dystopian future novels are wrought, and not simply one of the faces in a crowd of boring, safe writing designed to cater to the overly emotional minds of young teenagers, which is what it truly appears to be.