The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2

The upcoming conclusion (released on 11/20/2015) to the extremely weak series The Hunger Games is almost upon us…

I am SO ready for another two hours of crap.

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After being symbolized as the “Mockingjay”, Katniss Everdeen and District 13 engage in an all-out revolution against the autocratic Capitol.

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Now, I suppose it really isn’t crap. I can see how people enjoy it and there are some good ideas in The Hunger Games that you have to appreciate… a good example being the political intrigues of our President Snow… is he really heavily perfumed or not!?! I DONT KNOW BUT I WANNA

Anyways, I just have so many criticisms concerning The Hunger Games series.

The Plot Line

A major one being that the plot line for The Hunger Games movies is ridiculously weak. We never delve into the subtleties of life under President Snow, we only get brief glances at political structure, we never really get the ancillary characters needed to provide depth to the regime in the Capitol, everything in this movie is just the briefest of brief glance….. And without that sort of explanation to the audience, we’re left with a shallow movie that’s really just focused on Katniss crying and a bunch of action shots.

Then to top it off, all the deaths are wildly convenient to Katniss! She never ever has to make the hard decision. The plot line basically lets her coast through everything while everybody else randomly and conveniently dies around her. You know what else is convenient? Her injuries, they’re all “Oh no another facial wound that wont leave any kind of mark” or “owie my leg is hurted”.

And you know what, Katniss’ relationships are worthless in these movies. We’re never given enough information to become attached to characters she supposedly likes so much. So to the audience, it’s just kind of “OH SHE LIKES HIM THATS NICE” and “OH NO POOR BB STAY ALIVE KATNISS LOVES YOUUUUUU”.

Ultimately the plot line of the Hunger Game movies is just a big ball of convenience for Katniss, with complete focus on Katniss, and only brief glances at everything else.

Depth

Then, in the movies, there we are in some kind of dystopian future with wildly advanced medical technology and aircraft in the Capitol, but extremely poor conditions in other territories. Now if y’all really wanted to get the point across you would’ve emphasized that point Mr. big time Hollywood director. Instead we’re just left to notice that point ourselves… The problem of course being the audience only experiences that point through the fancy train. Everything else that might give us the impression of extreme wealth and technology in the Capitol and jack squat in the other regions only accounts for seconds of screen time. But perhaps there’s an assumption that you already understand this from the books.

Another thing besides the wealth gap and technology gap that is poorly explained in the films is the roles of “sponsors” and the literal rules to the hunger games. The only kind of sponsor action we ever see is from Haymitch… and that bugs me. I think there was an opportunity to add more depth and create a more dystopian, undesirable, feel to the movie by having big corporate sponsors give extra fancy stuff to opponents of Katniss while Haymitch struggled to get enough money just to give her medicine.

There’s just such weak usage of ancillary characters in the films. Katniss’ team is strong because of all these other characters, but those characters are never given the moment they need in the movie to let them shine and give us an idea of who they really are.

A Closing Note

The makeup situation in these movies is weird as hell, “oh yeah I’m just going through all this rubble and shit but my makeup is permanently on point and the dirtiest I’ve ever gotten is that single strand of sweaty hair in my face”. Yeah okay then.

And I really did enjoy the Romanesque feelings the movie gave off with the over indulgence in food and fashion in the Capitol. It almost reminded me of Julie Taymor’s Titus film.

But to Wrap Up

I am so not excited about this film…

But you know I’m going to watch it anyways…

If I don’t enjoy it, at least I can complain even more right!