The Hunger Games: Mock­ing­jay – Part 2

“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whim­per,” wrote TS Eliot in his poem, ​‘The Hol­low Man’, in 1925. Nine­ty years on and The Hunger Games has gone out in the same style. All but its depend­ably cap­ti­vat­ing lead­ing lady and a deli­cious­ly vil­lain­ous Don­ald Suther­land have run out of steam.

The result is a film that has the integri­ty to stay true to the para­me­ters of Suzanne Collins’ fic­tion­al dystopia but is nev­er­the­less flat and – for a uni­verse built on kids killing kids for tele­vised enter­tain­ment – dis­ap­point­ing­ly lack­ing in ten­sion and satir­i­cal bite. Where­as Mock­ing­jay – Part 1 worked as a round­ed, stand-alone film, the plod­ding nature of Part 2 sug­gests that the third of Collins’ books should have been turned into one instead of two films. But, you know, money.

The real­i­sa­tion is slow to dawn that this film about bat­tle-weary rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies tying up loose ends has a syn­op­sis that also applies to its pro­duc­tion. It’s to the cred­it of the world-build­ing that has gone before, the immer­sive pro­duc­tion design and Jen­nifer Lawrence’s emot­ing skills that the urge to engage with the sto­ry remains present for as long as it does. There are flash­es of excite­ment that push back the tide of tedi­um. As Kat­niss and her squad – includ­ing love tri­an­gle mem­bers Pee­ta (Josh Hutch­er­son) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) – progress from Dis­trict 13 to the Capi­tol on a mis­sion to kill Pres­i­dent Snow (Don­ald Suther­land), they encounter ​‘pods’ aka invis­i­ble trip­wires that release all man­ner of awful­ness: machine gun fire, black oil, mutts.

“Ladies and gen­tle­men, wel­come to the 76^th Hunger Games.” mut­ters Finnick (Sam Claflin) on dis­cov­er­ing the pods. Death by inven­tive cru­el­ty has always been a strength of the series, serv­ing action thrills to audi­ences and moti­va­tion for hero, Kat­niss, to fight back. Direc­tor Fran­cis Lawrence is only being loy­al to the book when he dials back these action sequences and dials up the num­ber of expo­si­tion-heavy char­ac­ter exchanges. Mock­ing­jay Part 2 is a pro­fi­cient exer­cise in drag­ging out a sto­ry that was only meant to fill half a movie, but pro­fi­cient is not the same as exciting.

As ever, Jen­nifer Lawrence pro­vides a mas­ter­class on how to embody a char­ac­ter. In The Hunger Games and Mock­ing­jay Part 1, the infra­struc­ture of the film world sup­port­ed her place at the cen­tre of an intri­cate jig­saw. Here, she oper­ates in a loos­er sys­tem to the extent that the salve of her onscreen pres­ence often seems to be scream­ing into noth­ing­ness. The lack of def­i­n­i­tion extends to the look of the film. Where once there was Dick­en­sian squalor, gaudy excess­es and the metal­lic greys of a rebel bunker, now there is only the mists of a world over­tak­en by war. Save for their glow­ing faces, Kat­niss and her pla­toon are black-clad sol­diers. Occa­sion­al glimpses of the Capi­tol are a ton­ic, espe­cial­ly Snow, who is unwell and off­set­ting his trade­mark white with red blood splat­tered into a handkerchief.

By this stage in the Mock­ing­jay sto­ry, most of the juici­est sup­port­ing char­ac­ters have been side­lined. Any­one hop­ing for meaty serv­ings of Eliz­a­beth Banks, Woody Har­rel­son or Stan­ley Tuc­ci will be foiled. There’s anoth­er actor, one of the great­est of his time, for whom this is a swan song. Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man is so absent that it feels like he left this mor­tal coil before the film wrapped, which is true, and nev­er more pal­pa­ble than when Haymitch reads a let­ter writ­ten by his char­ac­ter, Plutarch. The last plea­sure is to be found in the way that he deliv­ers the line: ​“It’s so frus­trat­ing when she goes rogue.” He’s half-smil­ing, half-iron­ic and his voice rum­bles with qui­et nuance.

What else is left? The love tri­an­gle, which is hand­i­capped by Liam Hemsworth at peak wood­en­ness. Josh Hutch­er­son as Pee­ta has more sound and fury. Mock­ing­jay Part 1 end­ed as he tried to throt­tle Kat­niss after being tor­tured and brain­washed by the Capi­tol. ​‘Will he or won’t he return to his old self?’ is the ques­tion that sus­tains his arc. Kat­niss is at her most pow­er­ful when she has loved ones to fight for. Pee­ta serves this func­tion, while her moth­er and sis­ter remain impo­tent in the periph­eries. It’s all build­ing to two fights: the rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies from all dis­tricts ver­sus the Capi­tol, and Kat­niss ver­sus Pres­i­dent Snow. There is a twist that is so poor­ly plot­ted that when it hap­pens it means noth­ing. Yet, one match deliv­ers a divine chemistry.

Don­ald Sutherland’s laugh­ter, his delight at chaos, the sick­ness of his char­ac­ter man­i­fest­ing in blood spots as he sits in a spec­tac­u­lar dome meets its per­fect coun­ter­point in the earnest good­ness of Lawrence’s per­for­mance. Her poten­cy is root­ed in a com­bi­na­tion of inner fire, ath­leti­cism and craft. She fun­nels up raw feel­ings, expressed in a spare for­ma­tion of words, empha­sised with sud­den and pre­cise move­ments. She watch­es. She lis­tens. She reacts. She nev­er trades off sen­ti­ment. She nev­er phones it in. It’s a real shame that almost every­thing else in this promis­ing and his­to­ry-mak­ing series col­laps­es before the fin­ish­ing line, leav­ing Jen­nifer Lawrence stand­ing alone in the burnt-out shell of the world that rock­et­ed her to stardom.