The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

The final installment in the Hunger Games series (so far - there is a prequel set for release as I’m writing this) sees the culmination of efforts of District 13 and its allies against President Snow and the Capitol.

A lot seems to happen so I’ll go straight into the score and breakdown.

Part 2 of Mockingjay gets a 7, losing points where the last one lost points: Story, Ending, and Enjoyment. Let’s get into it.

Originality: Again, no points were removed here, as promised, but I’ll say that the way the story is set out wasn’t so bad. If I didn’t promise to leave the points alone here, I probably would have left all the points here anyway.
Originality: 2 points

Characters: All of the characters here serve their purpose. Katniss is still the reluctant hero that sometimes sees the need for her role and handles business anyway. Gale is still in love with Katniss but is quickly understanding that Peeta has her heart. Peeta is coming to terms with the effects of his hijacking. President Snow is still evil but more than that, he’s spiteful. President Coin is beginning to show her desire for power more and more, which is to be expected considering that she’s been isolated for so long that as this opportunity has presented itself, she was going to take full advantage of it. No issues with any of this. Full points.

Also, as a side note, the characters have been great throughout the series and they were acted wonderfully by the actors. I’m sure they’re even better in the book.
Characters: 2 points

Story: We start just about where we left off. Katniss is nursing the injury she sustained from Peeta when she went to see him at the end of Mockingjay Part 1. Katniss wants to see Peeta, but he hasn’t completely healed from the effects of the hijacking. He’s still isolated and restrained. Instead of Katniss, they send in another familiar face, Primrose. The hope is that seeing a friendly face that he doesn’t want to instead murder might help the process along.

…it didn’t work.

Katniss is angry and wants Snow dead. She wants to make her way to the Capitol to get him, but the closest she can get is District 2. She tried to sneak there but is instantly recognized so she just figures she’ll go along with it all and sneak away to go after Snow.

The Capitol has a safehold for weapons in District 2, like a fortress in a mountain. The rebels want to take the weapons but realize they can’t. The next best thing is to keep the Capitol from accessing them. The plan is set to cause avalanches to close it off, but they agree that a way for the workers inside to escape freely and surrender. Katniss tries to talk to the workers as they were leaving the tunnel, but one gets the jump on her and holds her at gunpoint. She gives a great speech and convinces him to let her go only to be shot by someone else live on television.

President Snow, despite seeing her shot down live, isn’t convinced she’s dead. He later finds the rebels have found a way into the Capitol, but this is his plan. He wants them there because it’s a trap! No, not a trap - it’s a GAME!

Back home in District 13, Katniss is recovering from the gunshot. Turns out the suit that Cinna made for her before his passing, was bulletproof. She only suffered bruised ribs and a bruised lung.

Katniss wants to be on the frontlines fighting in the Capitol but President Coin and Heavensbee said no. They want her in much the same role as Captain America in The First Avenger where she’s more symbolic despite being the most capable.

Katniss agrees but has no intention to stay put. She learns from Johanna how and when to sneak about the supply ship carrying supplies to the frontlines. Coin and Heavensbee learn of this, but instead of stopping her, Coin wants everything she does to look as if Coin was the mastermind behind it despite her going rogue.

Katniss is put on a team designed to look good, the film crew is with her again, along with Gale, Finnick, and the still-not-ready Peeta, who is there to show the Capitol that they didn’t beat Peeta, and Boggs, who is President Coin’s second-in-command and was leading the military detail that went with Katniss and the film crew in District 8 in the last movie.

The team is in the Capitol, which is deserted and booby-trapped. It’s a game.

“Welcome to the 76th Hunger Games.” - Finnick

The team works their way through all the traps and plots until Katniss and Gale go undercover…

I’m happy they included a “hunger games” element to this but I still feel like there is just a LOT going on here and it muddles the story a bit. For there to be a WHOLE ASS war going on, there was a lot of not-actually-fighting. I feel like this shouldn’t have been a movie that was split. It’s not a bad story, but not as wonderful as it could be.
Story: 1 point

Ending: Katniss and Gale are trying to sneak into the President’s palace. Snow is trying to offer shelter to the people of the Capitol. As they approach the gate, Katniss sees her sister Primrose working with a medic team. At the same time, bombs were dropped from the sky. There’s an explosion and we cut to Katniss recovering from being so close to the bombs. We learn from Gale that the explosion killed Primrose and many of the children of the Capitol as they were sent to the front of the line to be saved first. Also, the explosion allowed the rebel to enter, occupy the Capitol, and capture Snow to be punished.

Katniss gets to see Snow before he’s to be executed by her. He warns her that it wasn’t him that dropped those bombs. It was Coin.

Execution day comes and instead of killing Snow, Katniss kills Coin. Cut to Katniss sitting in a cell being told that someone else will become President over all of Panem and they’ll have free and fair elections and that she’ll be pardoned and allowed to move to her home in District 12. She’s later joined by Peeta and they live happily ever after.

Okay, so this is the problem I’ve had through a good portion of this series. It’s this device used to fast-forward through the story: Katniss gets injured or sedated and when she awakes, a major story element happens and we’re just told about it. It’s the worse in this movie, which is why I’ve taken away points from Story, Ending, and because it annoyed me so much, Enjoyment.
Ending: 1 point
Enjoyment: 1 point