After nearly four years, a wealth of action, an array of crazy costumes, and, best of all,
an abundance of phenomenal actors giving Suzanne Collins' novels new life on the big screen,
The Hunger Games franchise is finally coming to an end.
So, I wanted to look back over the most heart-in-your-mouth moments from the final film, Mockingjay Part
2. Obviously, spoilers ahead if you haven't seen
the film already! And if that's you, I've got a non-spoiler
review for you right here.
Kicking off with number 5, Katniss hasn't even made it to the Capitol to confront Snow,
when she finds her life under threat. She's trying to rally District 2's loyalists
to the rebel cause, and let's just say they're not exactly down with what the Mockingjay
has to say. Probably didn't put them in the best of moods
that the rebels had just bombed them and caused a bunch of avalanches.
And just as one District 2 man relents after putting a gun to Katniss's throat, another
takes aim and hits his target. Thank goodness for that bullet-proof outfit,
hey?!
At number 4, ok, so even if you haven't read the novels, just hearing Boggs tell Katniss
that he's not gonna let her die on his watch leaves you feeling he wasn't long for this
world! And tragically, he's blown up just after Katniss
and her squad survive an especially nasty gun trap, one of the many hellish hidden traps
that make the Capitol itself feel like a big Hunger Games arena.
But things go from bad to worse when the next pod kicks off with what in the movie looks
like a shockingly real wave of liquid tar or crude oil that hits the courtyard like
a Tsunami, forcing Katniss and co to run for their lives to the top floor of a nearby building.
Then most of them only just get away from that building before Snow's troops arrive
and completely obliterate it! Talk about tense!
Moving on to number 3, if you're not a fan of confined spaces, then Pollux's suggestion
that Katniss and her crew go underground quite likely sent a shiver down your spine.
And, oh my goodness, when I saw Pollux crawl on his stomach through that tiny gap as they
made their way through the tunnels, I swear I felt my stomach turn over.
And as if the tunnels aren't creepy and claustrophobic enough as it is, there's also a load of lizard
mutts thrown into the mix for some insanely heart-stopping scenes which reminded me of
both Aliens and the British horror movie The Descent.
As for the look of those monstrous mutts, their design made me think of the sort of
beasts created by Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro.
Watching Katniss and her squad do battle with those mutts in close quarters was quite something:
there was Gale shooting them in the head, and Finnick with his trident, to name just
two. Speaking of Finnick, the sound of his repeated
screams for Katniss as he was beset by the mutts was really chilling.
And what about Katniss putting Finnick out of his misery by detonating the Holo! Oh,
man!
And at number 2, In Mockingjay Part 1, you could already see that President Coin was
a cool and calculating cookie. But she took that to an horrific extreme in
Part 2 when she tricked Katniss, Snow, and the people of Panem into thinking that Snow
was the one who dropped those exploding parachutes and bombed the rebel medics, when it was actually
her. And like that wasn't enough, Coin declared
herself interim President of Panem – and we all know just how long her kind of interim
would have lasted –, plus, she wanted to bring back the games… just “symbolic Hunger
Games… in lieu of barbaric executions”, as she put it.
But as Katniss realised, it was a case of plus ça change in Panem; in other words,
all they'd done was to swap a white-haired dictator for a grey-haired one!
So, when the moment came to step up and execute Snow, Katniss chose to shoot her arrow into
President Coin instead, freeing Panem from Coin's dictatorship before it really began
and, at the same time, avenging Prim's death. And let's not forget Coin's attempt to kill
Katniss as well, for example by sending a still-traumatised Peeta out to the Capitol
with Katniss's squad. Coin thought she was so clever, didn't she?
And she was arrogant to the very last with her line, ‘May your aim be as true as your
heart is pure'.
And at number 1, it was Katniss Everdeen's desire to protect her sister that saw her
volunteer to take Prim's place when she was picked as District 12's tribute back in the
first Hunger Games movie. And, ultimately, it was that very personal
desire that set Katniss on the road to become the Mockingjay, a very public symbol of rebellion
against the Capitol. So, what a terrible irony it was that, in
the end, Katniss could not save both the people of Panem and her own sister.
And the whole way it played out was just heart-breaking, beginning with Snow's offer of shelter to
the refugees and their children, to his troops taking their kids away from them at the gates
of his mansion, to the hovercrafts dropping little parachutes like the ones sent to tributes
during the Games, except these parachutes were bombs not medicine or food, to finally,
the rebel medics rushing in, Katniss seeing Prim, calling out and walking towards her,
only for a second wave of delayed bombs to go off, killing Prim and blowing Katniss backwards,
turning her into a literal girl on fire. The whole thing was truly horrifying.
Now, what are the moments that shocked you most in Mockingjay Part 2?
And what are your favourite scenes in the movie?
Tell me in the comments below! I've got a special video on the way with Things
You Didn't Know About The Hunger Games Mockingjay. I'll add an annotation here once it's live!
If you enjoyed this video, I really appreciate you liking and sharing it, and do subscribe
for more videos like this, movie reviews, and things you didn't know!
Thanks for watching and see ya next time. Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!