*I’ll give a spoiler warning here, since the movie is still in theaters*
The last part of the last book in the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay part 2 was a highly anticipated movie, and came out just this past November.
Honestly, I feel that while this movie included more than I expected, it didn’t include as much as I hoped (including one of my favorite parts of the books). It had the scenes from in District 2 at the mountain, where Prim’s death is... foreshadowed? Explained? I don’t know if that’s what it was, but it did allow us to understand that District 13 was in possession of the bombs that killed her. The whole movie made you hate Coin a lot more than in the books. I’m a little torn about that. It made her death a lot more obvious, you knew watching that Katniss wasn’t going allow Coin to be in charge from the beginning. In the book, you knew that Coin wasn’t a good person, but her death was still a surprise. And you’re in Katniss’ head. That may be why they made the reasons for Coin’s assassination so obvious, so it wasn’t so surprising... I don't know. The scene was beautiful though, and the shot of coin in gray with blood dripping down the steps, while morbid, was so well done.
The love triangle wasn’t done as well as in the books, but it was still pretty good. Because you can’t read Katniss’ mind in the movie, you have to read the books to really understand why Katniss married Peeta. When Gale told Peeta that Katniss would choose whichever of them she could not survive without, Katniss had thought to herself that she could survive without both. She chose Peeta not because the alternative was the guy that killed her sister, but because Peeta balanced her. And she wanted that. The movie’s inclusion of the love triangle was weird too, like the writers forgot it was even a thing until halfway into the movie. It was unclear whether Katniss and Gale were friends, “dating”, or whatever, so Peeta entering the picture led to more ‘I have no idea what's going on’ rather than the intended ‘I wonder who she will choose’ thoughts.
Prim’s death (and the aftermath) was also interesting. The movie made it clear that Snow had already given up when the bombs came, but in the book he was using the children as human shields. He did not kill them, but thought District 13 wouldn’t kill them either. He wasn’t quite ready to surrender. Katniss’ reaction to Prim’s death was a let down, too. Katniss was scarred mentally and physically, while in the movie she gets out with barely a scratch. She has a break down briefly after she gets back to District 13, but she’s just cold otherwise. Where is the depression? Her refusal to speak? Her scars where the skin grafts from her 3rd degree burns meet her skin? The same goes for after she killed Coin. She was in jail a lot longer than the three hours in the movie. She tried to kill herself. Actually, from the beginning of the book Katniss is almost always on some kind of psychological meds to help her heal from the games and the losses she experienced. The ignoring of her mental illness was incredibly disappointing.
One thing I always forget about the Hunger Games, is just how gorey they are. In the lizard scene in the sewers, there are other pods getting activated while Star Squad flees for their lives. A huge meat grinder that tries to swallow them up (and succeeds with one) and an alien abduction type beam of light that paralyzes and melts the flesh off anyone captured within it’s trap are the some of the worst. While I understand the movie is trying for a pg-13 rating, I would have liked a little more of that (and the trauma it inflicts) to have made it to the big screen.
So, great movie, but overall it could have shown more of the mental and physical effects of war, and found ways to allow insight into the love triangle and kept it more cohesive with the main plot.
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