The Hunger Games series has never gotten any higher than a score of 7 from me, this one unfortunately is no different.
As a movie franchise that is so beloved and held in high regards, it even made Jennifer Lawrence a household brand name; that's why this finale is such a let down for me.
I liked the first half more than the second half. The first half showed why Lawrence is such a force to be reckoned with in the business today. Her monologue that she gave when asked by one of the peacekeepers with a gun pointed at her, to give a reason not to kill her; and she began with "I can't..." - in that couple of minutes I got goosebumps after goosebumps.
She is so good at what she does by tapping into something inside of her that brings her performance up a few notches. And if she does get a nomination for this performance, I would not be complaining.
I loved the action pieces in this movie. A small one, though not in terms of size, was the first one when they were trapped inside a building. One which I started to ask why was Josh Hutcherson's Peeta still being kept alive.
The next one was inside the tunnels with the Mutts. It reminded me so much of Aliens and those action sequences were thrilling and intense. But I did have a problem here, which was when the group was split into two in the middle of the battle, why did we only see one group's fight and then later to have the second group come in out of nowhere. Very cliche storytelling, very 90's.
Bigger problems started when the survivors reached the surface. And this is where I have to go into SPOILERS territory.
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Why didn't the whole group cloaked themselves in disguises, and in better disguises? Why leave the rest behind when the objective was to kill Donald Sutherland's President Snow? Wouldn't more members infiltrating give a higher chance of success?
Who was Liam Hemsworth's Gale shooting at anyway in the confusion outside the Capitol? Wouldn't it be safer not to draw attention and just ran like everyone else? And we got the obvious answer a minute later when he got captured.
Why was Katniss' sister's death not played up a bit more? It was as if the scene wasn't even real because it was so confusing. And when Katniss woke later, she didn't even bother asking about the sister that she's been protecting ever since the first movie.
And that was the end of the Capitol-storming? The whole Part 1 of Mockingjay was about taking down the Capitol and we didn't even get to see that?
After the Capitol was taken over by Julianne Moore's President Coin, it's as if there was nothing that happened in what appeared to be a very long time, or however long it took for Jena Malone's character to grew a full head of hair. With Snow's downfall, what happened to the politics? What happened to the people? How did they rejoiced and celebrated?
And the whole build-up from the very first episode of Katniss wanting to kill Snow, it all came down to a tamed exchange in the greenhouse? Are you kidding me? I felt I was robbed of all my anticipation!
And finally, after Katniss killed Coin instead of Snow, she was immediately dragged away by two guards who locked her up in a room... Did they not ask what's going to happen now that Coin was dead? Did they know who they were waiting for by locking Katniss up?
And before I forget, why would anyone think it would be a good idea to leave Sam Claflin's Finnick alone to fend off the Mutts? Katniss tried to sell that loss as best as she could but all I could think of was, and you didn't see that coming as you climbed yourself up to safety?
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I was never a fan of the series to begin with. I didn't dislike it, but because it always had continuity issues and I get more questions after watching it; that's why I never loved it. But still, with the first half I thought this was going to be an epic conclusion to the series. Alas, that was not to be.
Especially the scenes with the love triangle issues, I could have done without any of those scenes. Those lines the characters had to say were cringe-worthy.
With how slow Part 1 was, I was expecting an all-out action movie this time. And that was the problem. There were so many slow parts in Part 2 as well that I am questioning the producers' decision of the split.
This was not a good wrap up of such a big franchise. But more importantly is that I felt I was robbed of the rebels fighting their way into the Capitol, as well as Katniss dealing the killing blow to Snow. Because, to me, that was what the whole series was about. But in the end, Katniss didn't even get to kill Snow.
This will definitely go down as one of my most disappointed of the year.
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