The last instalment of popular Hunger Games series ends on a high note but struggles to arrive at the finish line.
USA
3*
Director:
Francis Lawrence
Screenwriters:
Peter Craig
Danny Strong
Director of Photography:
Jo Willems
Running time: 135 minutes
This is one in a series of reviews including:
– The Hunger Games
– The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
– The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
Katniss is tired, and so are we. The climax has been awaited far too long, mostly because Suzanne Collins’s three novels have been stretched across four films totalling more than nine hours. Jennifer Lawrence has cemented her status as the archer par excellence whose face, three-finger salute and flaming mockingjay pin became the symbols of a revolution against the smiling but devious President Snow (Donald Sutherland).
The first film’s Hunger Games, an annual reality-show event in which two dozen boys and girls from the dystopian country’s 12 districts participate and slowly get killed off until one survives, showed us the rise of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence). She had taken part in order to save her younger sister, Prim, from being forced to compete. She befriended Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a fellow competitor and boy from the same district as her, and the two of them undermined the rules, causing President Snow to lose face. This small act of defiance eventually sparked a wider rebellion, whose progress was marked by the subsequent three films in the series.
In terms of atmosphere, this final instalment is spot-on, but dramatically it feels like we have run a marathon only to arrive at the finish line inside the arena and looking around to see no one in the stands. The climactic siege occurs, would you believe it, during an ellipsis marked by a black screen. This is a deeply unsettling move on the part of the filmmakers but is sadly representative of the many missing sections in a film that otherwise has very little plot.
At its core, the narrative comprises only the penetration of the Capitol, the upper-class zone with its style-conscious inhabitants who look down upon the riff-raff, namely those who make up the districts. This is followed by a surprise public spectacle and the requisite “happy ever after” epilogue that is all too reminiscent of the never-ending final moments of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Katniss, Peeta and about a dozen fighters make their way by land and by underground sewer system to advance ever so steadily towards the palace. Inevitably, some of them die, including quite a few we never got to know at all and, thus, to whom we had absolutely no attachment. It goes without saying that all the major players survive until the very end, making the film (even for those who have not read the novels) a tad too predictable. They also confront some slimy monsters (“mutts”) the likes of which we could not have imagined in a world that, in many respects, is similar to ours. But the battle with these creatures is drawn-out and made silly by an overbearing score, causing the viewer to switch off, particularly because we know (ignoring any glimmer of realism) that almost everyone is likely to survive.
The film’s logic is not always on point, however. In one scene, the team escapes from one side of the building, cross a courtyard and enter another side of the building before the previous hideout is blasted into oblivion. On television, President Snow broadcasts the beginning and the end but somehow manages to miss their escape in broad daylight. It is also way too easy for the team to have access to a “Holo”, a machine that points out exactly where in the Capitol hundreds of booby traps, or “pods”, have been placed and allows them a way to circumvent these traps without mass casualties.
The story’s most exciting developments are saved for late in the film, once there is a false sense of calm. While it has been clear from the outset that the rebel leader, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), is slowly becoming used to being in charge, this final film includes a handful of moments that increase our suspicions about her real intentions. To the screenwriters’ credit, her ambitions remain more or less ambiguous. At the same time, it becomes obvious that Snow was not the mastermind of a corrupt system as much as he was its logical extension.
The final moments, before the atrocious coda, are by far the most interesting, as they allow Katniss to reflect on her actions and the changes that have occurred since she first stepped forward to enter the ring in the first film. Katniss’s determination to make the right decision despite the ambiguity of the facts (“real or not real?” is a game she and Peeta plays throughout the film, and for good reason) signals her as an adult capable of critical reflection and aware of the consequences of her actions. At the end of a revolution, that is exactly what we want, even if the road to get there has been long and taxing.