“Real or not real?”
As we left the penultimate installment of The Hunger Games, reluctant rebellion leader Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) saw her friend and lover Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) brainwashed to hate her by the Machiavellian Capitol dictator President Snow (Donald Sutherland). As Peeta spends this final installment wrestling to regain his sanity, he constantly checks the veracity of his memories. “Real or not real?”
It is this question that permeates Mockingjay Part 2, the final film in this refreshingly dark if not quite realised adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ YA series. The nature of war, violence, propaganda and power are examined in the film that is more interested in examining the effects and aftermath of war than glamorising the battlefield.
As Katniss witnesses her friends transform into warmongering soldiers, power-hungry traitors, and the victims of endless violence, the guilt and trauma of war weighs heavily upon her. It’s an important subversion of the genre, showing violence not as something empowering or problem-solving, but cyclical and permanently problematic.
These aspects are highlighted by director Francis Lawrence and his leading actress, though Katniss as ever is often too quiet and stoic to be truly engaging; a flaw of the bloated yet underwritten screenplay, not the performance. There are also give some exciting action pieces, including a claustrophobic and terrifying attack by zombie-like “mutts” in the dark depth of underground sewers.
The literal darkness of the film evokes the increasingly bleak atmosphere of the broken society, and Katniss’ broken spirit, giving hefty emotional moments. (Brief appearances of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman add a layer of poignancy to discussions of lives cut short.) However, the final “twists” are clumsily telegraphed, the endings too numerous, and the sanitised version of Collins’ conclusion means the final acts sputters to the finish line. A fittingly serviceable end to a series that always had more potential than impact.