Movie Review: Mockingjay Part 2

It's been almost a week since I've seen Mockingjay, and I still feel like I can't really talk about it largely because it feels so important to me as a movie. You see, despite all of the hate Mockingjay gets in comparison to the other two books of the series, it's my favorite of the Hunger Games books. While the entire book is my favorite, there's so much that I particularly love about the parts that became the second Mockingjay movie. Add that it was also the final Hunger Games movie, and this movie just makes me really emotional.

Long story short, I loved it. I knew it was going to be great because all of the others had been. All of the actors did a fantastic job, and after being worried that my favorite scene from the entire series would be cut, I am still so happy that it was in the movie.

Of course, not everything can be perfect, so I did find two things that felt off to me. But one of those I can't even fault them for really, and they're not huge. (*SPOILER WARNING for the rest of this paragraph and the next*) The first was Haymitch reading the letter from Plutarch to Katniss. I appreciated the use of "Plutarch can't be seen with you now" to explain why he wasn't there, but it still felt strange to me, especially knowing that this scene was supposed to mimic the scene with Plutarch on the hovercraft in the book. I felt a little jarred during the scene, and because I was thinking about it, I realized that the scene must have been reworked because of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death. Because of that, I really can't fault them, but it did feel like it played out strangely to me.

The next part that was strange to me was the epilogue, which was probably what I was also most worried about going into the movie. I really wish they had left it without dialogue like how it is in the book. Katniss' speech to the baby felt a little strange to me and also not Katniss-like. I didn't really like it at all, which is a shame because I was hoping the epilogue would be done really well. (But I also wasn't surprised that it wasn't my favorite part of the movie. I do really love it in the book.)

I don't want the negatives to overwhelm this review though. I really did love the movie. I think the problem was that I loved so much of it that it's hard to pinpoint which things to talk about. So much of it felt like the book despite changes, and I think that's always one of the biggest things with book to movie adaptations.

I'm really sad that the series is over. Part of me doesn't know what to do with myself, which has made it harder for me to write this review. I want to pretend like there's more of Hunger Games in the future. Since it has to be over though, I'm really happy with the movie, and I'm just very thankful that we got as good of an adaptation of the series as we did.