This franchise finale is hardly the action-packed treat that we were promised following the book-splitting power-play-filled Part 1. Instead, Part 2 is a curious product, as The Hunger Games does Full Metal Jacket in a very sombre, melancholy and often lethargic manner. Occasionally, there are flashes of excitement, such as the Aliens-inspired sewer sequence, but the film is more concerned with being an earnest treatise on the effects of war and being a salutary lesson in truth being its first casualty, which it does quite strongly in the third act. Once again, an unusually high-calibre cast delivers heavyweight performances from an adequate script, the effects work is very well realised, and 3D is unshowy and natural-looking. Like The Return Of The King, it delivers a number of end-points, and whilst the emotional climaxes are a little muted, it can only be hoped that the franchise is allowed to rest at this satisfactory conclusion.
