By Peter Skrzypczak.
“We all have one enemy! And that’s President Snow!”
Disclaimer: I haven’t seen any of the other Hunger Games movies prior to viewing “Mockingjay: Part II.” When the first films were released, I was swamped with other media. Besides, “Harry Potter” was (and still is) the quintessential young-adult series, so who needs another?
I read the first book way back when it came out; I had a rough time with it at first – it was the whole annual tournament to the death for children thing. Though, the angsty child in me,who loves the idea of massive fighting tournaments, was all for it.
Having said all that, diving into the last one first, I feel rather bad -particularly because I really enjoyed the film.
The one constant I’ve heard about the films (about all her films)is the quality of Jennifer Lawrence’s performance, and man, is she great.
There really are a lot of people I like in this movie: I’ve always been a fan of the Sutherlands, and while this isn’t Donald’s best role, it is still memorable. Woody Harrelson, Natalie Dormer, Stanley Tucci and the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman all hold their own.
The production is pretty solid throughout. A good deal of CGI is used,but it isn’t downright terrible or cheesy.The one glaring issue I have is the choppy editing during one sequence in particular, which follows a group in some sewers. It is very intense,reminiscent of “Aliens,” but there’s alack of grace during these scenes. I have more details in the spoiler section, if you dare.
Like I said in the beginning, I’ve only read the first book so I can’t be the judge of how close it sticks to the source. What I can say is that having gone in with little knowledge, I’m more interested in seeing the whole picture from the beginning.
Spoiler Alert: Obviously, having not seen the other films, there were periods where I was completely confused. I would suggest you maybe watch the others first, or read the books.
For instance, and I’m not sure if they’re in the books (or at least portrayed in it in a different way) but in the aforementioned sewer sequence there are these eyeless zombie things.Do they infect with their bite? They were clearly ravenous–I’m really not sure what to call them other than eyeless zombies. Whatever, they were not my main issue.
We are clearly shown one of Katniss’ (Lawrence) squad members getting snuffed by the creatures,followed by an even bigger swarm chasing the rest of her team. For what seemed like forever we only see like three characters and I assumed like half the cast had died, which seemed like a really strange decision. A few minutes later there is this ridiculously climactic fight in this hub area where a lone ladder stands reaching to the surface–and suddenly, seemingly everyone else is back fighting. It didn’t feel like this was done on purpose, but it was so jarring I was pulled out of the movie’s magic.
