Mockingjay part 2 confirms what we feared in part 1: that splitting a 390 page novel into 2 films is to the detriment of the viewer.
More baffling than the cash grab choice of 2 films is the runtime of this installment. It's a 137 minute film loaded with scenes that are so low on substance it makes one wonder if nothing was cut. As many have pointed out, the pacing is poor. It starts incredibly slow before jarringly accelerating. Two thirds of this movie will have you banging your head against a desk wanting the scene to just end already, while the remaining third is so rushed that it's difficult to feel much of anything.
Beyond adaptation issues, this installment is less politically literate than it gives itself credit for. While I enjoyed the PR maneuvering in Hunger Games and Catching Fire, it had started to get repetitive in Mockingjay Part 1, and by Part 2 it feels outright stale. The televised cat and mouse between Snow and the rebels is never explored more deeply; an issue that -- to beat a dead horse-- may have been easier to forgive if Mockingjay were one film. Outside of exploring the tactics of propaganda, it has precious little to say about ideology or ethics. Snow remains a rather generic tyrant to the end, and his counterpart, President Coin, goes from generic rebel leader to generic opportunist. We never explore the nature of the political economy; we never get into *why* figures like Snow and Coin are created; the series is content to simply say that tyrants are a thing that happens because someone somewhere is very good at scheming.
It is perhaps fitting that the story ends with Katniss completely checking out from politics and retreating to live her cozy, upper middle class life with Peeta, trying to forget the harder days. In the end Katniss, just like Collins, settles for "damn that's messed up" as her response to the pressing social questions of our time.
More baffling than the cash grab choice of 2 films is the runtime of this installment. It's a 137 minute film loaded with scenes that are so low on substance it makes one wonder if nothing was cut. As many have pointed out, the pacing is poor. It starts incredibly slow before jarringly accelerating. Two thirds of this movie will have you banging your head against a desk wanting the scene to just end already, while the remaining third is so rushed that it's difficult to feel much of anything.
Beyond adaptation issues, this installment is less politically literate than it gives itself credit for. While I enjoyed the PR maneuvering in Hunger Games and Catching Fire, it had started to get repetitive in Mockingjay Part 1, and by Part 2 it feels outright stale. The televised cat and mouse between Snow and the rebels is never explored more deeply; an issue that -- to beat a dead horse-- may have been easier to forgive if Mockingjay were one film. Outside of exploring the tactics of propaganda, it has precious little to say about ideology or ethics. Snow remains a rather generic tyrant to the end, and his counterpart, President Coin, goes from generic rebel leader to generic opportunist. We never explore the nature of the political economy; we never get into *why* figures like Snow and Coin are created; the series is content to simply say that tyrants are a thing that happens because someone somewhere is very good at scheming.
It is perhaps fitting that the story ends with Katniss completely checking out from politics and retreating to live her cozy, upper middle class life with Peeta, trying to forget the harder days. In the end Katniss, just like Collins, settles for "damn that's messed up" as her response to the pressing social questions of our time.