THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2

year: 2015 cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore

The first MOCKINGJAY was a bonafide war film while this is more or less the end of the beginning of war as response to what were the RUNNING MAN style games provided in the first two ventures, and now we have a cross between war and games...

Jennifer Lawrence

That's right, war games, but what the kids are going through, trying to finally and officially take down the nefarious President Snow within his actual territory, is quite real, although the action lacks the suspense and creativity that made the original competitive tale intriguing while the bombastic aura of its MOCKINGJAY predecessor is gone.

Attempting to wedge a bonafide agenda into a bland, desperate revolution, PART 2 is extremely predictable during the 11th hour when tables turn too quickly. In fact the entire episode drags out like a prolonged, soap operatic goodbye rather than a story all its own. If MOCKINGJAY was a single two-and-a-half hour movie, it would have not only have saved time and (people's) money, but the action and characters would mean a lot more, overall, to each other and their young rabid audience.

Rating: **
SPOILER: For anyone wondering what happens with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's propaganda director Plutarch Heavensbee: with strategic editing, since Philip died during production, his character's life doesn't end... If only life imitated art.