Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Published 10:50 AM by with 0 comment

Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 Review (Spoilers)




The Hunger games series is one of the most popular franchises in recent years, appealing to boys, girls, and everything in between. I know that my own sister was sucked into the novels, and movies. I personally liked Mockingjay Part 2, as did many critics; ultimately it is the themes and ideas that the film portrays that is its strength; the division within the rebels, the manipulation of media and war, and the survival of people in the face of overwhelming odds.
The books, written by Suzanne Collins, are set in a dystopian future, where each year, two children from twelve districts are sent as tributes to a compulsory gladiatorial competition known as the Hunger Games. It is a story of Katniss Everdeen, one of the children chosen to participate in the 74th Hunger games, and after the events of two whole books, sparks a revolution, the driving force of the last two Mockingjay films. Part 2 film deals with the conclusion to the revolution, the violent war that leads to the uniting of the districts and Capitol, while also focusing on the love triangle between Katniss, her childhood friend Gale, and her fellow tribute, Peeta.

The characters do not drive this story; they are less the epic heroes than the celebrity soldiers, mere tools for the vast agencies that have gone to war. Katniss, throughout her whole life, has been manipulated by the Capitol, and now the rebels she has chosen to fight along. Katniss has become the ‘Mockingjay’, a symbol of freedom for the rebels, and that’s all the leaders treat her as, a symbol, that when the time comes, will be more useful as a martyr. There are no ‘good guys’ in this war, merely less corrupt. The film doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of warfare, showing the rebels attacking civilian targets while posing as the Capitol in order to further rally support against their enemy’s leader, President Cornelius Snow. The Capitol are even worse than the rebels, Snow acknowledges the fact that they will lose this war, deciding that as a final show of strength to convert the outer neighbourhoods of the Capitol into a series of booby traps in order to make sport of the rebel’s deaths, filling them with morbidly creative killing machines and monsters.

The rebels are clearly not the most virtuous collection of characters, but it makes sense, while the fighting may consist of human/reptile hybrids, hovercrafts, explosive crossbows, and other crazy gadgets, it is ultimately a reflection of modern warfare. In World War 2 the ‘heroic’ allies would bomb civilian targets, Britain was still a racist empire, and the allies sided with Russia, a country who at the time had so much blood on its hands their red flag didn’t just stand for revolution. The film treats death and war with a sense of maturity that is to be admired, when Finnick is torn to shreds by monsters, it’s sudden, Katniss doesn’t get to lie him down and sing a sad song to him, like real warfare with real casualties, Finnick died in the heat of battle without a proper goodbye.  The rebel leader, President Coin, has been planning this revolution for decades, and it is clear that perhaps she views this enterprise as less of a war for freedom, and more as a violent coup, in fact during the film it’s clear she wants Katniss dead because once the war is over she’ll become a liability. The rebels have a secret agenda of instilling their own dictatorship, and the Capitol wishes to kill as many rebels as they can in a final act of bitterness, both sides using the media against one another. Katniss’ squadron is in fact a piece of propaganda to inspire further troops as well as lead Katniss to her death, turning her into a martyr for their cause, while the Capitol televises the deaths of the rebels in the style as they did to the Hunger Games tributes as a way to weaken the resolve of the rebels.

The conclusion of the film is great; you have Katniss, now leading her squadron through the booby-trapped city towards President Snow’s mansion to assassinate him. Katniss loses many friends and allies on her journey there, and once she arrives, she finds a huge herd of refugees heading towards the safety of the mansion, blending in, she stalks like a tiger towards her prey, only to have the rebels bomb the crowd, storm the mansion, and capture Snow before she can kill him. Once the Capitol is occupied by the rebels, Coin holds a ceremony where Katniss will shoot Snow with her bow and arrow like a medieval firing squad, but before this, she holds a private meeting with the remaining survivors of the Hunger Games to explain her plan to create a new gladiatorial competition, but now with the Capitol’s children. Katniss confronts an imprisoned Snow who tells her that they were both deceived by Coin, who has simply replaced his dictatorship with her own. Katniss, with the thoughts of betrayal and manipulation, the existing precedent that Coin has tried to kill her, and the traumatic experiences of two Hunger games and a war, turns her arrow not to Snow, but to Coin, killing her at Snow’s execution.

Mockingjay Part 2 is a great movie, there are so many aspects to analyze and enjoy, from the inherent corruption of government and the media, to the subtle manipulations of heroes. Katniss doesn’t end the war, she is not an epic protagonist who with a few allies defeats the malevolent empire, but she simply tries her best to survive in the world she has grown up in. Katniss is used by the titanic forces, first as a way to keep the districts divided in the Hunger Games, and later as a symbol, and soon-to-be martyr, in the war. I enjoyed the film very much, and will look forward to buying it once it comes out on DVD.

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