The Hunger Games has been a series that I have seen as being a very successful roller coaster ride. The first movie started off on a decent level, and I saw it as a good starting point for the rest of the movies to try to do even better on. The second movie in The Hunger Games series, Catching Fire, was an amazing follow-up to the first one. The action scenes were beyond incredible, the story line progressed at a decent pace (although I would have been fine with them lengthening the movie so that we would be able to associate on an even deeper level with the plot and the characters) and we got to see more sides to the characters themselves as well, learning more about each one’s past and why everyone acts and feels the way that they do.
With so much hype generated in Catching Fire, I was just ever so slightly disappointed with the release of The Mockingjay Part I. Don’t get me wrong; I still enjoyed the movie, but I just felt like there could have been more. The main focus was on propaganda and the triangle love affair, the latter of which pulled me away from the movie more than anything else. Quite frankly, I could care less about who Katniss wants to romance it up with, and it almost got to the point that she was kissing up on anything that had lips (That kind of stuff really pisses me off in movies with female protagonists. Like, she’s supposed to be an awesome warrior woman leading the front lines and saving the people, but then you have her kissing on guys every five minutes. That totally takes away from the character, you know?).
Nevertheless, it was an acceptable buildup to the finale of the Hunger Games saga, The Mockingjay Part II. Now I know that many of you have not been able to see this last installment (maybe you were thrown off by Part 1?) So I won’t give anything big away, but I will say this: I haven’t seen an ending to a series so epic in all my life (yes, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part II. Killing off all of your characters does not translate into having an epic ending). Everything about this movie was worth the year long wait for its release. I will admit that the beginning was a little slow to start, but I found that to be an important aspect of the movie. You should never start off with an action scene a minute into the movie, and we learned a little bit more about the characters in the process. Besides, once the action gets started, it literally does not stop until the last arrow is shot. And the plot twist! I would have never seen anything like that coming, but Katniss’s reaction to the whole thing was pure greatness (See how I’m not giving away anything specific? That means that you should just go watch it already!).
The only drawback was – yet again – the love triangle. I’m sorry, but you don’t kiss someone in the middle of a gunfight; that’s just tacky. Overall, though, The Hunger Games saga did not disappoint in the slightest. I have watched the first three multiple times already, and I will definitely go back and watch all four of the movies again.
