Movie review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

After four years, three films and reportedly more than US$2.2 billion (NZ$3.4b) in worldwide box-office takings, author Suzanne Collins' disturbing young adult book trilogy comes to a grim and exhausting conclusion with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

Director Francis Lawrence returns for a third time, and Part 2 picks the story up directly from Part 1, with the rebels making their final move to take the Capitol and bring down President Snow.

Last year's Part 1 saw a departure from the approach of the first films, based for the most part in the underground bunker in District 13 rather than within the Hunger Games arena, it was filled with more talk and less action.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in a scene from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. Photo / AP

Part 2 adds some much-needed adventure back into the mix.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is struggling with the constraints of being the rebels' figurehead, the Mockingjay, and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is back in the safety of District 13, but struggling with the effects of torture and brainwashing courtesy of President Snow.

Gale (Liam Hemsworth), well, he's still walking around like a stoic, third wheel.

Katniss, in the ever-capable hands of Lawrence, is in almost every scene and provides this harrowing war story with a moral compass and a character to get behind.

The chitchat, as Katniss tries to work out who to trust, is interspersed with some exhilarating action sequences. A sewer tunnel scene under the Capitol, as Katniss, Cressida, Finnick and Boggs try to reach Snow's mansion and assassinate him, is superbly executed.

It had the theatre gasping out loud but it's one of only a few truly memorable action scenes in two and a half hours.

This is the darkest and most oppressive of the films; filled with a revolt and revenge that doesn't quite feel heroic or without political machinations.

Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket and Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in a scene from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. Photo / AP

The post-apocalyptic world of Panem has always been a brutal place, and it's not until the final scenes that the depth of cruelty is revealed.

The Hunger Games franchise has been one of the most consistently good young adult film adaptations.

Well crafted and acted, and for the most part well scripted, The Hunger Games films have always been at their best when set in the arena with a game in play. While a final attack on the Capitol plays out like an unofficial Hunger Game, it doesn't quite reach the same edge-of-your-seat intensity delivered by the earlier films.

Movie: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth
Director: Francis Lawrence
Running Time: 137 mins
Rating: M (Violence, horror scenes, content that may disturb)
Verdict: A long, grim, but satisfying conclusion.