When a story starts as a bunch of teenagers being forced to kill one another and turns into a political drama, I begin to run out of things to say about it.  I am referring to the overarching plotline in the saga that is The Hunger Games.  Yet, because they kept the main title throughout, one can rightly wonder what happened to the “games” part?  They got away from this concept in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), but returned to it in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015), today’s film.  This time, in the middle of a warzone, the “game planners,” those responsible for monitoring the deadly tournaments, install traps all over the battlefield.  It becomes a mobius strip of death that this peace-loving Catholic grew tired of watching.  At least there are some good messages along the way.  I just do not care for the packaging.

Actually, “packaging” is a great word for much of what you see in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, henceforth just Mockingjay – Part 2.  With our long-suffering heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), still recovering from her friend (boyfriend? fiancé? lover?), Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), trying to choke her in his addled state, there is not much for her to do.  That is the message given her by Alma Coin (Julianne Moore), president of District 13 and leader of the rebellion.  They are fighting against the despotic government of Panem, led by President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland), who Katniss blames for all the awfulness in her life, the latest of which is Peeta’s torture.  As such, she wants to do whatever she can to help the cause, and she believes the best way of accomplishing this is by putting her in the capital to take down President Snow.  President Coin says this is impossible without first taking District 2, which is where the government’s best soldiers are currently based.  Though impatient, Katniss volunteers to go to where the current fighting is happening in order to rally support.  Upon getting there, she learns that the rebel plan is to destroy every Panemian in their undergound bunker, including innocent civilians.  Her longtime friend (boyfriend? lover?) Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) supports the genocide, forcing Katniss to speak out boldly against such a move.  Instead, they bomb all the entrances to the tunnels but one, which is where the survivors come out and surrender.  No sooner do they emerge that shooting starts until Katniss intervenes.  Still, she is able to calm the situation only briefly as a fanatic emerges and fires at her.  The incident is caught on camera, as everything is in these movies, but President Snow remains unconvinced that she is dead.  Nonetheless, rebel forces are closing on the capital.  To deal with the threat, he plans on letting the uprisers into the city walls, and then booby trapping the streets to make them pay with blood for every block.  In listening to President Coin and others talk about what to do next, Katniss is again told to stay out of the fighting.  However, she has made it her mission to kill President Snow.  To do so, she sneaks onto an aircraft headed for the front lines.  I am not sure the furtiveness is necessary because she reveals her presence as soon as she lands.  Not wanting to let an opportunity slip, President Coin orders Boggs (Mahershala Ali), one of her top officers, to assemble a team to go with Katniss and film them moving through the streets.  With them are most of the surviving victors, including Peeta, despite his as yet uncontrolled murderous intentions towards Katniss.  Gale is there, too, in order to make the love triangle even more confusing.  This is also when they start thinning out the cast.  The traps they spring as they move from one building to another get progressively more dangerous and deadly.  One of them costs Boggs his life.  As he passes, he tells Katniss not to believe President Coin and to continue what she has come to do.  Shortly after this, government troops locate some of Katniss’ comrades.  Once more, it is caught on video and President Snow broadcasts it as evidence that she is dead.  As such, the saboteurs decide to take a more subterranean route, but are soon overrun by monsters.  I am not sure what to call them, but it results in a few more deaths.  One of the remaining camera crew, Cressida (Natalie Dormer), is able to find them a safe place to regroup.  While there, President Snow announces that he will be opening up his palace to any survivors in the capital seeking shelter.  Katniss sees this as her chance to assassinate her enemy.  With Gale accompanying, they approach the gate only to be interrupted by rebel forces on the attack.  There is a rush forward, with children being handed to guards when they are bombed by parachute devices meant to look like care packages in the games.  Katniss is knocked out and awakens in the hospital with the war over.  Sadly, her sister, Primrose Everdeen (Willow Shields), dies in the final act of the conflict.  Now up and moving, Katniss seeks out President Snow, who tells her that the parachute bombs were the work of President Coin.  His contention is that the rebel leader wants to replace him.  This is made all the more real when President Coin announces to the surviving victors that she will be taking over as interim leader of Panem.  She also wants to subject the capital children to a Hunger Game, which Katniss votes for as long as she is allowed to kill President Snow.  This is to be done in public, but Katniss instead fires her arrows through President Coin’s heart.  Her plan had been to then poison herself, but she is prevented from doing so before being arrested.  While in prison, her mentor, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), brings her a letter telling her that she will be pardoned and that there will be free elections.  With that, Katniss returns home to District 12 where she lives happily ever after with a recovered Peeta.

I guess I can get behind the fact that Mockingjay – Part 2 has a happy ending, even if getting to that point was frustrating.  As with previous installments, a large portion of my frustration stems from the Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle.  At various points Katniss is about to kill Peeta, and then a few minutes later she is kissing him.  It works in reverse for Gale, although there is no deadly intent.  She says goodbye to him when she learns that he may (or may not?) have known about the final bombing.  I guess it all shakes out in the end, but I wanted a clearer road map for where this was headed.  Gale points this out to Katniss, saying after one of their kisses that it is like locking lips with a drunk person.  She does not mean it, therefore it is meaningless.  The problem is that Katniss is traumatized from her experiences and is seeking comfort in the wrong places.  This Catholic would tell her that the correct one is God, but such thoughts are far from the film’s calculus.  However, it does underscore something that is true about her behavior, and all humans in general: we are self-destructive.  To be clear, this is not how God made us.  Our primary function is to love, and to love God above all others.  There are glimpses of this in Katniss in the care that she displays to those to whom she is closest.  At the same time, she often tries to go it alone on many things, including the mission to assassinate President Snow.  God gave us the desire for community in some form, not to alienate people.  Therefore, pushing others away is contrary to our being.  The same can be said for warfare.  What quicker way is there to tell our fellow human beings that they mean nothing than to orchestrate their death?

Mockingjay – Part 2 has enough drama, so I will not add to it by saying I would rather die than watch these movies.  After all, I have one more to go.  What would make it better is more scenes like what Peeta says about how our lives are not our own.  He means it in a different context, but this Catholic is here to tell you that this is how we should view our relationship with God.