I probably should have reviewed this film a while ago, like right after it first came out. Most of you who are familiar with my Speculative Fiction Saturday stories know that I don’t often report on films as they come out, but occasionally, I do.

I usually feel a need to do some sort of plot synopsis or something, but honestly, just read my reviews of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, Part 1. I will have to admit that I found the first part of Mockingjay to be quite boring, as it was full of a lot of war politics rather than action.

In fact, the second film starts out pretty much the exact same way, and it was actually starting to bore me, again. However, I believe that I can recommend this film. The issue is that I read the book on this, several years ago. However, I didn’t really remember it very well, only that it was pretty dark. I really don’t think I can talk about this without discussing the ending, so there is more after the jump.

The issue with this film is that it succeeds at bring up aspects of the human race that are not pretty. They are issues that have been dealt with before, such as George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Humanity has a terrible way of governing itself that is caught in a loop. First there is a dictatorship, where freedom is squelched to the ultimate degree. Then there is a rebellion, but honestly, most rebellions don’t have a plan for what happens when the tyrannical government is deposed. Then there is too much freedom, leading to anarchy. Of course, you can’t run a country based on anarchy, so leadership takes over, and then you eventually go back to dictatorship.

I didn’t realize that this is the direction that the author was going with her Hunger Games trilogy. I honestly believe that these two movies could have been one, and a lot of the downtime in the middle could have been eliminated.

Still, the idea the humanity is caught in this loop is discussed in depth in this last film. It is very obvious that the revolution against President Snow and Capitol is just preparing the way for another supreme leader to take over. In the end, there just doesn’t seem to be a way out of it, and what Katniss does to try and stop it does not guarantee freedom.

I know that I should probably hate this film because it has that whole Young Adult (YA) vibe to it that films like Divergent and Twilight are soaked in. This is another dark dystopian series targeted toward a much younger audience, but this certainly has a lot to say about humanity that teens need to learn. Let’s hope the next generation won’t make the same mistakes as the last.