The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

And so “The Hunger Games” Trilogy, plus one, finally comes to pass. “Mockingjay Part 2” follows, expectedly, “Mockingjay Part 1”, the latter an invigorating upping of the stakes in post-apocalyptic Panem in which the whole land’s favorite Hunger Games contestant, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), was conscripted by the Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) spurred rebellion to help overthrow the dastardly regime of President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Though it ended strongly, it also just, like, ended, suddenly, without concrete resolution, because it had to, because they had to stretch it out into two parts, not for any storytelling reasons, really, just for box office reasons, because this is Hollywood and box office is greater than storytelling. So it probably goes without saying that “Mockingjay Part 2” feels stretched too thin, padded with superfluous action scenes and running a little over two hours because longer means “epic”, or something.

That’s not to imply that “Mockingjay Part 2” is a boondoggle. No, it opens well in opening where it left off, with Katniss’s one-time ally and fiancé Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) locked in solitary confinement on account of having been brainwashed by the government forces into killing Katniss. He’s trying to get his mind right, but that’s not easy, and anyway, there isn’t time because the rebels have to strike at the capital and President Snow while the iron is hot. So the upstarts hijack some serious weaponry and make haste. That is not, however, the track director Francis Lawrence’s film follows, at least not at first, welcomingly adhering to “Part 1’s” exploration of war as propaganda. We stay off the front lines to follow a small rebel group, with both Katniss and Peeta, who needs to be there for media reasons, re-staging action scenes to sell to the masses, like they are John Huston at The Battle of San Pietro. Meanwhile President Snow retaliates with his own misinformation communiques, as “Part 2” seems to be shaping up as a battle of behind-the-scenes persuasion rather than on-location bloodshed.

That changes as the small band encounters booby traps eliciting all manner of special effects, like tidal wave-y black tar, which precipitates an escape into the sewers, where they fend off some horde of CGI creations, and then become determined to break into the capital to assassinate President Snow. Like “Part 1”, action sequences are not the film’s forte, feeling suspiciously like filler, oddly comatose in all their faux-grandeur in spite of being so oppressively noisy, and there are more of them here than the first one as “Part 2” eventually loses interest in exploring how individuals in positions of power can manipulate the masses to tie everything up through big set pieces. Still, always lurking in the background is the idea that Alma Coin is something of a Lady Macbeth to her own Macbeth, scheming for the throne once she kicks Snow off of it, which briefly, tantalizing suggests that his big-budgeted Hollywood opus will actually go full-blown tragedy.

Whether that happens or not, I will let you find out for yourself, though I assume you have an idea. And anyway, if you’ve made it to “Part 2” you know this is as much about Katniss and Peeta’s Will They? or Won’t They? claptrap as political scheming. Perhaps claptrap is too strong a word. After all, their relationship throughout the movies was based less on love than playing their own version of Hunger Love Games, as if they were Panem’s Hiddleswift, concocting a narrative to appease Panem’s demands, their so-called love based as much on the political winds as affairs of the heart. But as the film’s scope widened and its ideology deepened from the first movie to the third (fourth), their relationship more and more came to resemble background noise amidst so many bigger fish to fry between Katniss and Snow and Alma.

Lawrence’s performance, too, as she became a pawn, and fought back against being a pawn, became more dour, as if Katniss was less interested in victory, per se, than in all this crap being over. And so, when the true reckoning of “The Hunger Games” arrives, it’s supposed to be when this series born of fakery and propaganda instituted by each side to cajole everyone else into doing what they want to do, is finally supposed to leave the ersatz behind for the genuine, for true love to bloom in full. Alas, it does not. It feels as forced as a Charles and Diana public appearance. The end is the fakest moment in the series.

Retroactive Best Movie Hair of 2014

Natalie Dormer. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1." No explanation necessary.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

“The Hunger Games” trilogy (plus one) is among the few film series I recall genuinely improving as it progresses. The first film was nothing more than the same kind of action-oriented reality show it was supposed to be satirizing. The second film, however, broadened its scope and deepened its ideology. The “Part 1” addendum to “Mockingjay” obviously betrays the third film's status as a set-up, but don't assume it’s a mere placeholder. If you’re willing to set aside justifiable anger over Hollywood’s need to wrangle two films outta one just to reel in those sweet, sweet bucks, this film is tough and smart, even if its conclusion has no choice but to be a cliffhanger.

“Mockingjay, Part 1” is more political intrigue than dystopian thriller. If you’re looking for a gaggle of flaming arrows and physical challenges, disappointment might ensue. As if sensing that ahead of time, director Francis Lawrence crams in a woeful Cat Rescue sequence and a couple other moments of machine gun fire and CGI explosions, perhaps because “machine gun fire” and “CGI explosions” were directorial contract conditions. Whatever, the true action here is conversational, behind the scenes, two opposing blocs trading bureaucratic bombast, almost as if we are watching an adaptation of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s “Game Change” for Panem, the North American world of this post-apocalyptic landscape.

If that sounds like heady stuff for a film based on a Young Adult novel, well, even Young Adults have to learn that in America – er, Panem – advocates of hope and change dabble in the same nefarious tactics as the vile keepers of the status quo. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, once again expertly providing this blockbuster a super solid sense of gravity), Hunger Games heroine, was propped up by venomous President Snow (Donald Sutherland) as the false beacon of his totalitarian society, the magic to distract the mob. She shattered that illusion, literally and figuratively, as the second film, “Catching Fire”, concluded and now she has been brought by a rebel faction to an underground hiding place where its leader, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), and her right-hand man, Heavensbee (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman), yearn to turn the most beloved face of this totalitarian society into the face of their fledgling insurgency.

There is an endless assortment of talking heads seen on massive video screens spouting rhetoric that may or may not be based in truth but, either way, inspires the masses, transforming “Mockingjay, Part 1” into a straight-up contest of propaganda where neither side is unwilling to hit below the belt. Katniss is issued her small unit of protection cum documentary crew, following her into the field and filming her adventures for evangelistic purposes. One scene finds them resting on the shore of a serene lake where Katniss is goaded into singing a song, which she does, unabashedly and unironically, though the rebellion expediently transforms her hymn into a District 12 dust bowl ballad, Katniss Everdeen as Pete Seeger. Everything she does is exploited.

Perhaps this is why she clings so desperately to her past relationship with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), her fellow “Hunger Games” hero and kinda, sorta love interest. He remains behind in the government-held capital city and her only interactions with him are not really interactions at all. Every time the rebels submit a Panem-wide communique, the capital city hits back with a communique of its own, and usually in the form of Peeta addressing Katniss directly, begging for his one-time ally to give up this insurrection. Naturally Katniss assumes he is being brainwashed but since we never see the story from his side we have no idea if that’s true, or if he assumes the same thing about her. I yearned for a dual movie set in the capital, one where the President is spinning Katniss Everdeen as Patty Hearst and Alma Coin as Donald DeFreeze.

It’s this relationship that gives a purposely talky movie an extra dose of oomph. In movies where the livelihood of an entire civilization is threatened are often criticized when a single love affair is somehow made out to be just as important. “The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” someone once said. But if everything you are is co-opted in the name of a cause, well, what’s left but loving the one you’re with? Or, in the case of Katniss, loving the one you want to be with. And that’s why even if the film’s end is wide, wide open in lieu of the wrap-up that will not arrive in theaters until November 20, 2015, there remains a detectable note of convincing melancholy as this first part concludes. What if even the only person you love isn't whom they appear to be?