New movie, so, spoilers.
Before we begin, a confession: I only read the first 'Hunger Games.' Right now I'm picturing you, dear reader, with a shocked -- shocked! -- look on your face and in your best Martin-Lawrence-as-Shanaynay voice going, "Say whaaaaaaat!?" But honestly, I feel I can better judge the movies having not read the source material and therefore knowing them on their own merit. At least that keeps me from shelling out for them.
Despite being an enjoyable series as a whole, there's two big complaints. First, and regarding the movie itself, it didn't need to be split into two movies. I'd forgotten large chunks of the first and struggled to remember who half the people were while processing the action. It also gives the beginning a disconcerting start in the middle feeling -- probably because it does -- and at about hour two it passes from expanding on a detailed fictional world to just wasting everyone's damn time.
Secondly, I never felt that much about The Hunger Games had much to do with anything that happens in the real world. It's not a stretch, given that Collins is American and that the book is aimed at an American audience, that Panem is a dystopian America far in the future. For example, a government that purposefully forces its subjects into starvation is kind of asking for the rebellion that concludes the series, and my guess is real life people would've put up with it for a hell of a lot less time than at least the 75 years Districts 12 thru five did. I always thought it would've been much more interesting if the government provided a super unhealthy but cheap to produce food for its subjects, keeping them fed but rendering them weak with obesity and its many related health problems, and that Katniss stayed fit and fed her family meat and grain not out of death-defying need but simply choice.
Plus, the messages about conformity and following orders would never fly with an actual population, especially if the contemporary era is the basis of that future. The reason so many angsty teenagers buy into the mantra that they are different, just like everyone else is different, is that everyone is a maverick in the modern age. Part of the hilarity of presidential elections is watching people like Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush try to convince everyday Americans that somehow they are different, and not a bland emissary of the ruling class; that sending their children to the most exclusive prep schools in the world puts them on par with confused middle-income moms hopelessly confused over a high school grading system. In my estimation it would be impossible to keep a people down by convincing them of their place in society and just hammering the point. Americans are ceaselessly optimistic, after all, which is why I guess President Snow had it coming all along.
So The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay: Too Many Colons: Part 2 sums up Panem's revolt against power with a bang and a stern warning never to trust anyone over 40. Katniss herself is and isn't part of the climatic battle, but hangs back to film propaganda shots for the rebellion and carry out a super-secret mission that somehow everyone knows about. She feels almost ancillary at this point. Even the scene where she's filmed turning a captured worker to the cause ends with a gunfight that was going to happen whether she was there or not, and the incident quickly spirals out of her control and into rebellion leader Alma Coin's endless stream of Girl on Fire inspirational posters. The tango between Coin and Snow is perhaps the best written part, and its to Donald Sutherland's credit that he comes across as an evil leader, perfectly aware of his evil, who knows that his time is over and doesn't care one bit. It's to Julianne Moore's credit to play a younger version of exactly that during a moment of unfettered victory and rise to power -- you could say it's two sides of the same yeah I'm not even going to dignify that with a complete sentence.
In fact, the "beginning" to about the hour-thirty mark is sort of a blur since nothing very interesting happens, and the pivotal moments come crammed together at the end. Peeta slowly recovers from his government brainwashing and turns human again, while Gale leads what amounts to a rebellion-sponsored death squad. Haymitch, Effie, and the other tributes and side-characters are barely around before they're swiftly killed off or forgotten, and then there's zombies in a sewer for some reason?
The climatic battle is fantastically filmed and genuinely hard to watch, but leaves out what would otherwise be gallons and gallons of blood for that sweet PG-13 rating, and from then on the movie is solely about Katniss's plan to stop the original evil government from transitioning to a new evil government. I counted 3 plot twists heavy with mom-style hometown wisdom about power and double-edged swords and something-something violence begets violence before a very long end sequence that doesn't so much close the story but just kind of Peetas out.
Yep, that happened. I'm not funny. And did I mention the zombies?
Maybe it's mechanically-delivered end speech to a baby that doesn't yet have object permanence let alone speech centers or J-Law's seemingly unchanging youthful looks, or maybe it is the stupid yellow dress, but I don't buy Jennifer Lawrence as a mom. She's an immensely talented actress and a delight to watch, but the five minute appendix of her with babies being motherly and reassuring while Peeta does his best fun dad impression in the blurry distance felt forced. Perhaps after the intense breakdown scene where Katniss finally learns to love the mangy cat introduced in the opening paragraphs of the first book, the writers decided everyone needed a break and a cute baby. Here's a hint: if you want to end on a cheap positive note, just play this video of Tumbles the two-legged puppy getting wheels.
The thing I like the most about Hunger Games is just how cynical it all is. I said before that the best part of the final movie is watching Coin and Snow send respective legions of wide-eyed loyalists to their not-at-all-bloody deaths, literally playing chess with living pieces. It is an entirely unromantic image of political rebellion.
People have complained that Hunger Games ripped off Battle Royale but having seen the entire thing through I believe the author when she said she didn't know anything about it beforehand. If it does rip anything, Katniss Everdeen has a distinctly Paul Atreides quality to her. If Dune was the story of a young, charismatic warrior leading a downtrodden people to a destiny of freedom, but unleashing a shit storm of unending slaughter as a by-product, I'd say Collins took far more inspiration from that than Japanese high schools students killing each other with Uzis and cleverly hidden razor blades. The comparison to Battle Royale is one of complete surface analysis that only makes sense as long as you don't think about it too much; Battle Royale is far more optimistic in its world view and opinion of people as heroes than Hunger Games. Which is what makes Hunger Games so good.
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