(This review may contain spoilers).
I’ve just come back from watching the midnight showing of this movie… and I have to say, it did meet my expectations. Although it didn’t deviate from what I remember of the events of the book, I actually preferred that. It was nice to see it stay true to the source material.
I thought it was good to see some sweet moments in this movie, along with the horror and violence of the war they were fighting. I felt that the movie did a good job of portraying Coin as someone who wasn’t a perfect answer to the problems… but towards the end of the movie, there was one scene in particular where I lost quite a bit of respect for Katniss.
Although the atmosphere of this film was vastly different to the first two in this franchise, I thought that there was an equal amount of tension… perhaps more, since there were no guarantees that even one person would survive. I enjoyed seeing Pollux’s relationship with his brother and although he couldn’t speak, I felt he was still able to get what he needed to across.
I enjoyed seeing some of the nice scenes, particularly with Finnick and Annie. Finnick, Johanna and Cressida are probably my favourite characters in this movie. Although Johanna didn’t appear a great deal, it was nice to see her when she did. And I thought she was a lot stronger than she was given credit for.
I did feel a lot of sympathy for Peeta and the confusion he was facing. It was nice to see him and Katniss interacting and him struggling to understand what was between them. I did like Gale… but I still believe that the love triangle was taken care of in a slightly lazy way; there didn’t feel like much of a ‘choice’ on Katniss’ part.
There were some really sad moments in this movie, as well as some that were kind of creepy. I was drawn into this movie and felt myself absorbed into the storyline. It was a nice end to the franchise and I felt it contained some good elements… even though I felt they could have shown more to do with the characters. Still, it stayed true to the book and is a movie I wouldn’t mind watching again… if only to see more of my favourites.
