The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Movie Review
Major Spoilers are included in this movie review. Please read with caution.
On September 2, 2020, I got around to rewatching The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and found myself having similar thoughts from my viewing of Part 1. Honestly, there really wasn’t a reason to split the book Mockingjay into two parts except to follow what the Harry Potter and Twilight movies did for cash grabbing purposes. Despite the split though, Part 2’s beginning still found ways to spin their wheels for the movie’s first hour or so.
The opening with Katniss trying to speak her name felt kind-of awkward—and somewhat boring—because of how it directly followed-up Part 1’s ending. Watching the scene made me wish I had watched this movie right after I finished Part 1 to close that awkward gap. I did like the callback to the book’s opening chapter though regarding the “My name is Katniss Everdeen” exposition recap.
Jennifer Lawrence also looked like she had outgrown—physically and mentally—the role of Katniss Everdeen, so this movie was more than ready to end in more ways than one. For some odd reason, the other stars in this movie didn’t really stand out or had any meaningful roles aside from Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen. Her performance in this movie was memorable and emotionally driven from start to finish.
The main plot centered around Katniss finally taking action—realizing that being only a prop symbol of hope wasn’t enough—and going to help fight President Snow once and for all. Along the way to fighting Snow and the rest of the Capitol, they have to avoid a black ooze wall, scary lizard mutts down in the sewers, and disintegrating ceiling beams that took out several members of Katniss’s team. The lizard mutts were the scariest things in this movie, having swallowed so many people in a gory manner.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 definitely had its up and downs with an odd ending, but the whole series is still worth investing your time in. The uncomfortable lessons on oppression, authoritarian, social classes, and revolution are worth learning, especially in today’s world. Thanks for reading my movie review, everyone! I really do appreciate it.