The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 (12A)

Three stars

Dir: Francis Lawrence

With: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

Runtime: 137 minutes

FOR the franchise times they are a-changin’, as Bob Dylan never sang. The boy wizard has magicked his way through eight movies and is now to become a stage play, the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are back in the Shire with their hairy feet up, and Twilight has bitten its last. It only remains, then, for The Hunger Games to get its coat.

As with Potter, it has taken two feature length films to cover the final book. Quite the mystery how one novel can do the trick but the movies require two chomps at the cherry. Do you reckon this has something to do with maximising revenue? And do you also fancy the sky is blue?

But here we are, ending the series that began with The Hunger Games (2012), and went on to Catching Fire (2013), and Mockingjay Part 1 (2014). The finest thing about the films, and books, has been Katniss Everdeen, one of the strongest and best female characters of recent times. It is hard to imagine anyone but Jennifer Lawrence doing her justice, and the American Hustle and Winter’s Bone actor fulfils that task here with the same grace, skill, and sheer fill-the-screen charisma she brings to every picture.

Part 2 begins exactly where the first left off, as though someone had split the two movies with scissors and rejoined them. Katniss is back with the rebels led by President Coin (Julianne Moore rocking a grey barnet). Meanwhile, in the Capitol, and sporting an equally impressive head of grey hair, sits the hated President Snow (Donald Sutherland), creator of the games which forced children to fight to the death for food, is still in power.

It is an older, wiser, more sombre Katniss who stands at the centre of Mockingjay. No wonder she is gloomy. Suzanne Collins’s terrific books and the films are satisfyingly bleak affairs, conjuring up a future one really would not want to live in. Katniss, though still a youngster, has seen too much death and suffering, and now her old beau Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) has become another casualty of war, his spirit broken by the Capitol’s torturers. He blames Katniss for everything, calling her a monster. Part of her wonders if he is right. But there is no time for such navel and psyche gazing when the evil Snow has to be tackled, so on with the leather jacket it is as Katniss once more goes unto the breach.

All the old favourites are back for the last hurrah, including rebellious Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), fashionista Effie (Elizabeth Banks), and arch media manipulator Plutarch (the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his last roles). The action sequences are strong, with the crowd scenes, always a winner in the series, still first class. And we continue to care about these characters and want to see what becomes of them (even if we have read the books). So what is the problem?

Problem one is that Part 2 is overstretched, leading to long sections where very little seems to be going on, and what there is has been seen too often before. Fans, not wanting the ride to end, may not mind that. Problem two is more serious. The Hunger Games has been criticised in the past for being rather strong meat for youngsters when it comes to violence. Here, too, there are scenes alarming enough to keep adults awake at night never mind younger viewers. The filmmakers’ commitment not to pull punches about war is to some extent admirable. But it is the movies after all, no film can ever truly do war justice, and these are meant to be films that a family can watch together.

None of which should take away from Lawrence’s achievements in playing Katniss. It is the mark of a great franchise that one starts to miss the hero or heroine even before they have gone. It happened with Harry Potter and now it happens with Katniss Everdeen. So long, kid, and thanks for all the attitude.