Cast: As always, it begins and ends with Jennifer Lawrence. She's the sole lead. The next biggest supporting performances are, as expected, from Josh Hucherson and Liam Hemsworth. Pretty much everyone else, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willow Shields, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone - good lord, this is a big cast- Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, etc., is relegated to a few scenes.
Plot: The rebels finally gain some momentum and decide to storm the Capital. Of course, President Snow has setup traps across the city to stop them from getting to his mansion.
Thoughts:
I like to be positive, so I'll start with the good things. It cannot be overstated just how good Jennifer Lawrence has to be to make this work. She's the sole lead and the story doesn't move beyond her. The script doesn't move far from the first-person narrative of the books. It's doubly hard because Katniss is not a chatty character. You need an actress of Lawrence's caliber to sell as much as she does with a look. The supporting actors don't get a lot of time, but just about all of them get their moments to shine. That's harder than it looks with a cast this large.
The action is every bit as exciting as in the first two movies. In a lot of ways, opening it up beyond the Hunger Games arena lets things breathe and gave the characters a refreshing amount of agency.
I like that The Hunger Games has more on its mind than a lot of these other Young Adult dystopias, which is why it's found success that others have not. Katniss isn't a "chosen one". She's a god damn hero who accepts the situation put before her and does what's right. I don't know why that's such a hard egg to crack for other movie.s
The Hunger Games has been a hard franchise for me to get into. The first movie was pretty good. The second was too much of the same. The third movie really didn't impress me because there's wasn't enough story to justify it as its own movie. The fourth didn't change my mind about that. Given how much time they got to spend on the third book, I don't know how this movie managed to be so vague. The entire plan to storm the Capital is riddled with holes. Are there cameras all over the city or not? If not, why aren't there any? How could they set up so many elaborate traps in the city in this amount of time? How could they ensure the traps wouldn't harm the citizens who were apparently still living in the city? Taking things out of the controlled environment of the Hunger Games arena left a ton to explain that the movie simply didn't care to.
Pretty much everything after the climactic bombing didn't sit well with me either. The "Return of the King"-esque 10 endings needlessly drew things out. More importantly, I didn't buy the political strategy. Coin became too much of a heel and a fool at the same time. I don't believe she couldn't've gotten to that level of prominence if she was both.
Elephant in the Room: How to they do with the lack of Philip Seymour Hoffman? For the most part, I didn't notice it. There's only one scene where it feels like they had to write someone else into it instead of him. Even that scene plays well enough. Overall, seeing him on screen was just a sad reminder that I won't be seeing him again.
To Sum Things Up:
This is a fitting end to the series. Jennifer Lawrence shines. Things explode. Empires crumble. It's a shame this had to come out in a moment when the Star Wars hype machine is eclipsing it.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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