Ensign Lestat's Film Log, 24/11/2015
I am speechless. This is a rare phenomenon as I am prone to chatter after a film. I'll sit and analyse everything about it. That's my thing. I love doing it.
Usually if someone started their review like that I would raise my hackles and await the toxic comments section to vent. But here I must admit, HGM2 is brought down by its source material that was written by a woman and it is brought down by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence).
Katniss was supposed to be the role model the new generation of youngsters could look up to. A hero, a friend, an all-round good person. But she's none of these.
Would we ever get a piece of art which featured, as it's protagonist, a man who was a symbol but ultimately incidental to the plot? Because that's what Katniss is. She is incidental. The only time she showed actual courage and bravery was in the first film. While that film was anything but perfect, it had a great deal of novelty value, by dint of her being more in charge of her actions, and making some tough decisions. One could even forgive the burgeoning love triangle as another of Katniss' schemes to garner favours with the sponsors. It worked.
From the second film onward, Katniss has been clueless about the world around her. She and the Mockingjay have become a symbol of hope and of freedom, but Katniss herself is just lost in her own personal turmoil.
The love triangle between her, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) take centre stage at the cost of several lives in the story. People lose their loved ones in the stories, but hey, as long as Everlark is alive we couldn't give a damn.
Not sure what Suzanne Collins was aiming for with be trilogy, because if it was to create a genuine great female hero, she certainly was having a laugh.
It's obvious that not all women writers write such pedantic nonsense but it is Hollywood's inclination to constantly pick those up. Where other women are writing truly inspiring stories (some as simple as 'Inkheart') we are constantly thrust with the simplistic formula of sole-woman-is-deemed-to-be-a-hero - everyone else then proceeds to hero about while she pines and mopes. See the 'Divergent' series for something similar.
HGM2 irked me no end, especially its haphazard and choppy storytelling and its distinct lack of action. As I said, it's impossible to think of a film where a male protagonist, no matter how young, doesn't engage in battle and come out the victor after single-handedly taking down an imposing enemy.
Katniss doesn't even enter the battle, nor does she end it. I am so stunned that the war ended without her that I'm still trying to process it.
Oh and don't worry about spoilers, a minute into this film and you literally won't care about it enough to worry about it.
The whole point of the film, and the book too I guess, was to come up with a logical reason for why Katniss should end up with Peeta and not Gale. In the end the reason is pretty contrived. It's novel to shunt your good-looking lead into the untrustworthy/ ambiguously bad character role, but it felt out of character for Gale. Gale simply has no character; he pines for Katniss for no reasonable reason. He doesn't take the hint either to back off and treat her like a friend - you know, like a normal person would.
I am speechless. This is a rare phenomenon as I am prone to chatter after a film. I'll sit and analyse everything about it. That's my thing. I love doing it.
But today... all I want to do is purge my mind of the atrocity that I have just witnessed. 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2' is singularly one of the worst film I have ever seen, and it's mainly because of its female protagonist.
Usually if someone started their review like that I would raise my hackles and await the toxic comments section to vent. But here I must admit, HGM2 is brought down by its source material that was written by a woman and it is brought down by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence).
Katniss was supposed to be the role model the new generation of youngsters could look up to. A hero, a friend, an all-round good person. But she's none of these.
Would we ever get a piece of art which featured, as it's protagonist, a man who was a symbol but ultimately incidental to the plot? Because that's what Katniss is. She is incidental. The only time she showed actual courage and bravery was in the first film. While that film was anything but perfect, it had a great deal of novelty value, by dint of her being more in charge of her actions, and making some tough decisions. One could even forgive the burgeoning love triangle as another of Katniss' schemes to garner favours with the sponsors. It worked.
From the second film onward, Katniss has been clueless about the world around her. She and the Mockingjay have become a symbol of hope and of freedom, but Katniss herself is just lost in her own personal turmoil.
The love triangle between her, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) take centre stage at the cost of several lives in the story. People lose their loved ones in the stories, but hey, as long as Everlark is alive we couldn't give a damn.
Not sure what Suzanne Collins was aiming for with be trilogy, because if it was to create a genuine great female hero, she certainly was having a laugh.
It's obvious that not all women writers write such pedantic nonsense but it is Hollywood's inclination to constantly pick those up. Where other women are writing truly inspiring stories (some as simple as 'Inkheart') we are constantly thrust with the simplistic formula of sole-woman-is-deemed-to-be-a-hero - everyone else then proceeds to hero about while she pines and mopes. See the 'Divergent' series for something similar.
HGM2 irked me no end, especially its haphazard and choppy storytelling and its distinct lack of action. As I said, it's impossible to think of a film where a male protagonist, no matter how young, doesn't engage in battle and come out the victor after single-handedly taking down an imposing enemy.
Katniss doesn't even enter the battle, nor does she end it. I am so stunned that the war ended without her that I'm still trying to process it.
Oh and don't worry about spoilers, a minute into this film and you literally won't care about it enough to worry about it.
The whole point of the film, and the book too I guess, was to come up with a logical reason for why Katniss should end up with Peeta and not Gale. In the end the reason is pretty contrived. It's novel to shunt your good-looking lead into the untrustworthy/ ambiguously bad character role, but it felt out of character for Gale. Gale simply has no character; he pines for Katniss for no reasonable reason. He doesn't take the hint either to back off and treat her like a friend - you know, like a normal person would.
And why does Katniss even put up with it? She should have just told him to shut up and get lost. But no, that seems out of the purview of reasonable behaviour for the writer. Oh, and not sure if Collins was aiming for some superhero shtick, because the three participants in the love triangle have an uncanny knack of waking up at the same time and overhearing each other's conversations. Now that's a gift no one asked for.
But, moving on from the love triangle - which is difficult, considering it's always the focus - there's a host of talented actors who appear as useless background characters. I especially despise the fact that Gwendoline Christie is nothing but a useless figurehead, who ends up arguing with two other women over strategy, only for all their ideas to be shut down by a guy! What!
There are a number of women in the film, but they're all useless. President Coin is played by Julianne Moore with some conviction and she showcases her as a doubtful character, but it's thrown at the audience all of a sudden.
If that's not all, Katniss goes off on a random mission to kill President Snow (Donald Sutherland), and proceeds to do nothing but whinge and whine. When finally she reaches the mansion's gates... bombs blow up, killing her sister, who suddenly appears out of nowhere, and... that's it.
The war begins and ends without Katniss Everdeen. She doesn't matter. All the carnage around her name and that's it. Why couldn't Collins have written a full-blown strategised battle? Wouldn't that have made more sense?
There's a lot of death in the film - it's expected, of course. What I didn't expect was the black guy to die first. I thought that went out with the '90s.
There were a couple of people behind us who were really upset when Finnick (Sam Claflin) died. He got killed by zombies which really doesn't compute. What also doesn't compute is the weird tiger person who shows up for one minute. That's a whole other level of bizarre which doesn't fit the tone of the film. Well, neither did Finnick's awkward remark about Snow pimping out the victors in the previous film - but apparently that's all part of the source material.
The scene with the zombies, however, was the only one with any life in it. Granted, we knew and expected the lieutenant to die, but the rest of the team - Katniss with the bow and arrow, Gale with the gun, Finnick with the trident and Peeta with his bare hands, were a well-oiled machine. We needed more of that.
Why am I overthinking this? Because Hollywood takes the meekest and weakest examples of 'strong women characters' and holds them up as perfect examples. Neither Katniss, nor Lawrence are shining examples of role models. They try, but they fail.
And don't get me started on that ridiculous overlong ending. Didn't think I'd ever see another film with even more epilogues than 'The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King', but surprise! Not only did it take over half the runtime, but it was cringe-worthy beyond compare. Gawd, I wanted to sink into my chair. Because all that Katniss' apparent efforts to save the world resulted in one was thing - her settling down and having kids. Wow, 2015 and apparently that is still all Hollywood expects of women characters.
The books that get published sing the same song and the films adapted from them aren't far off, but surely thinking viewers know better. Some may, but not enough. I really hope we don't have to put up with any more YA nonsense for a while (at least till after the Divergent series is finally over). There's only so much we can take.
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