Day 261: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (November, 25)

Long before the movies were announced, in the middle of the night, I finished the last book on The Hunger Games series, Mockingjay. I was absolutely heartbroken. Don't give me that but-it-is-just-a-dystopic-book-for-young-adults look. I was inconsolable. So, I went to the comments about the book on amazon to see if I could get a hold of myself. There was one comment that was addressing my exact feeling, and so I could understand better why I was so staggering sad (apparently, other people felt the same, because 3,221 people found it helpful too).

Warning: there's a bit of spoiler ahead, but nothing serious, I promise (especially if you've read the books).

I suspected that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, the final instalment of this series on movies, would not reach such a high note. And I was right. But I never thought it would fail so miserably to convey what the books are about. Loss, that's the word here. Not only loss by death, but by growing apart from someone that was your a main part of your world in the past. A loss that nothing can surpass, even happy and better days. Even a big head cartoon baby or an awful housewife hairstyle (what was that, by the way?).

The last dialogue between Katnip and Gale is so overwhelming in the book... only to becomes nothing but a shallow and tearful nonsense. She is cold, he is a weak full. All that made the book so unbearably sad was absent here. Not a big surprise, actually. Movie adaptations from YA books seem to avoid intensity as death itself. Even if the story is about loss, and death and destruction. Go figure.

The movie is action packed, of course - and surely it is good. The production on the series spares no visual effects to make it astounding. But that's it. The rest is only a slight reminder of what broke my heart on words. Fairly disappointing for a franchising that was doing so well until now.

An afterthought: for a moment, I could forget that Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn't really there. 

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. Directed by Francis Lawrence.
With: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip
Seymour Hoffman. Writers: Peter Craig, Danny Strong from the novel
by Suzanne Collins. USA, 2015, 137 min., Auro 11.1/Dolby Digital/Dolby
Atmos/Dolby Surround 7.1/Datasat/DTS, Color (Cinema).

PS: Thanks to Woody Harrelson, this movie has a good surprising unscripted scene :)

PPS: Fragments: Jessica Jones Season 1, episodes 5 and 6 (and maybe 7, let's see).