The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) began her journey fighting to survive the brutal Hunger Games, and rose to lead the rebellion against Panem’s tyrannical president (Donald Sutherland). Now, Katniss and a team of rebels from District 13 prepare for the final epic battle that will decide Panem’s future.
We’re now at the finale of this franchise and we get to see where all of this is leading to. I was never keen on reading the books so I went into all of these films with a clean slate and wanting to see how it was all going to end. Part 1 was a strong film that really set everything up really nicely but for some reason this film felt really flat. As I watched I kept telling myself “It’s going to get better. It’s just the beginning.” but as a whole it never really got better. It wasn’t terrible but the entire film felt very anti-climactic when comparing it to the other films and that is disappointing when this is supposed to be the end of this story. The performances of Lawrence, Sutherland, Hutcherson, etc. were all great and there was no change in what they brought to their characters. The one obvious change was the write off of Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Plutarch Heavensbee. He’s there and then he isn’t and they explain it by reading a letter that was left for Katniss. I understand that they had to find a way to do it but this felt a lot like The Simpsons episode where Poochie went back to his home planet. It was sloppy and they should’ve gave a better closing to Hoffman’s character. As much as I wasn’t a fan of the narrative of the film there were some really cool moments too. One of my favorites was when the rebellion was retreating from their initial attack on The Capitol and they get chased by zombie-like creatures called Mutts. Moments like that made me sit up in my seat a bit more and pay closer attention. The design of them looked really creepy and with them moving as fast as they did legitimized them as a threat to the rebels. With the flaws that the film had it was still enjoyable just not as much as I anticipated it would be. It seems like they tried to wrap up everything in this film but ended up rushing certain story elements too much. I’m not going to say skip this film because if you’ve already seen the others then you might as well finish it out with this one but just be ready to possibly feel underwhelmed. 6/10
Special Features:
Pawns No More: The Making of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 – This over 2 hour documentary is split into eight features and goes in depth about everything from production design to the writing process and much more.
The Hunger Games: A Photographic Journey – The feature showcases photos from throughout the films in the franchise.
Cinna’s Sketchbook: Secrets of the Mockingjay Armor – This shows a lot of costume design elements but focuses more on Katniss Everdeen’s outfit.
Panem on Display: The Hunger Games: The Exhibition – A small promo that takes a look at the exhibition that features memorabilia and
Jet to the Set – This is an episode of a show that shows interviews with the cast of the film and shows a set visit.
