*Spoiler alert*
There is no way to talk about the positives of this film without spoilers. You have been warned.
You may remember that I didn't get around to seeing 'Mockingjay: Part 1' until very late in the day and when I did it turned out to be exactly the protracted, dull, lumbering bore that I expected it to be. However once you've committed nearly seven hours of your life to something, you feel duty bound to see it play out. In all honestly, I went to see this one in the first few days of release just to get it out of the way as quickly as possible, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it a rewarding and fascinating film.
A kaleidoscope of thoughts ran through my mind as I was watching it (and there is plenty of time for your mind to wander) and there was much musing on the nature of revolutions as the film shambled towards a grimly satisfying bittersweet resolution.
A week after the Paris attacks I was watching a film that has revolutionaries/terrorists pretending to be refugees in order to commit a violent attack. It features bombs being dropped purposefully on children as a means of influencing public opinion. It has the ruling elite watching guerrilla generated footage that implores citizens to turn their guns to the Capitol. There are subterranean, forgotten, mutant humanoids (the monstrous underclass?) that just want to destroy anything that crosses their path. It has good people who want to change the world being literally annihilated by those twin enablers of power - armaments and oil (I don't know what that black stuff is - but I'm reading it as oil.)
All of which makes 'Mockingjay: Part Two' the most timely, politically provocative charged film currently out there
It's also badly paced, clumsy, frustrating as hell and strangely dispassionate....but hey you can't have everything.
It is a remarkably political film, and one that has the courage to logically follow through on its premise to a convincing conclusion. I feared this final film was going to throw all of the rhetoric out of the window and just be content to have Katniss decide between two suitors whilst battling the forces of oppression. It is admirable that the film sidesteps such a classical Hollywood narrative. There is no pat moral story or reassuring comfort at the end of this film. One set of lies is traded for another set of lies and nothing is ever the same afterwards. We are shown the other side of the (President Coin) coin when a new Hunger Games is devised. The cycle of violence is broken but it only feels temporary whereas the damage done is permanent. What Katniss has lost is evident. What she has gained seems fleeting. She is damaged. The world is damaged. Life goes on but not as celebration.
When Peeta and Katniss are together in bed and he asks her if she truly loves him, or is still only pretending to love him ....we're not quite sure that there is any real conviction in her answer. Peace is found....but no real progress and the ultimate message of the film is that "We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction."
But it's not a bleak film, just an honest one. It's also resolutely not dumbed down for a young audience and is all the more admirable because of it.
It's a shame that the Hunger Games series as a whole lost momentum by being drawn out over so many years. Personally, I'd rather have had two 'three-hour' films rather than four 'two-and-a-bit' hour films. The final instalment works hard at rekindling some excitement but it never quite gets out of the lugubrious rut it fell into with 'Mockingjay: Part 1 " and it never hits the emotional notes the way it should (well, not for me anyway - others in the cinema were crying - so it could just be me). There's some callback to the original 'Hunger Games' when the journey through an evacuated city full of booby traps evokes the survival of the fittest atmosphere again and it recalls the arena setting but even the best action sequences seemed a bit formulaic and lacked tension. The 'fighting our way through the drain' scenes sequence in particular felt like it was grafted on from some other blockbuster (of the 'I Am Legend' meets 'Aliens' variety) and were riddled with sub standard, seen it all before, video-game CGI.
It also doesn't help that it slows down to cram in a number of cameos only in order to say adios to characters from the previous films, some of whom you barely remember. Who the fuck was that tiger-lady for instance? I'd completely forgotten about her and some of the campy costumes and characters now seem out of place in such a grim film.
Jennifer Lawrence is clearly a great actress but probably underplays Katniss a bit too much in this film. It's not quite the bewildered, somnambulist performance of 'Part One' but she does maintain this resolutely blank, detached approach to Katniss that becomes aggravating at times. Katniss is strong - yes, seen too much - yes, done bad things - yes..... but she's still a young girl - she should be a volcano of emotion. Admittedly she does explode in a scene towards the end but I felt that we needed to properly connect with her again long before this point.
Minor gripes aside, you've got to say that fans of the books should be more than happy with how the series has translated to screen, when it could so easily have become a 'plucky young girl defeats bad-guys in the near future whilst wearing skimpy outfits - let's all go home now' load of forgettable nonsense. At least we didn't have to suffer that!
I think it will remain a series I'd like to revisit every so often (preferably with a ffwd button), I think its remarkable that it exists in the form that it does, I think it is relevant to the times we're in and I'm glad that youngsters will keep discovering this story. I'm also glad that it's all over but it's a good, interesting, thought-provoking conclusion to the series.
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