I’m With the Mockingjay

This past weekend once again found my family and me in Lubbock.  You may or may not know this, but Lubbock and I… Well, we don’t really get along.  For some reason, every time I go out there, I have the worst luck.  I get abandoned at an airport, I get sick, the fire alarm goes off at my hotel (because there’s actually a fire), I get snowed in… I don’t know what it is.  Lubbock just doesn’t seem to like me.

I wasn’t going to let that get me down, however, because this weekend, my sister starred in an opera (as a demented eight-year-old) called The Turn of the Screw.  Y’all, this was a seriously creepy show with some incredibly talented singers.  We were all blown away by the performances. And I loved it, of course, because it was a ghost story!

As much as I enjoyed watching my sister act possessed, I think we were both really looking forward to the next morning, when we finally got to see the final installment in the Hunger Games series: Mockingjay Part 2.

Let me just say that I think they could have made Mockingjay into one exceptional movie and it would have been perfect.  I’m not really a fan of this new splitting the last book in a series into two movies.  But the Hunger Games movies are by far the best book-to-movie adaptations I’ve ever seen, so I can’t complain too much.  This last movie did not disappoint.

So, in the style of all my other movie reviews, I present to you… Mockingjay Part 2!

*** MAJOR SPOILERS. IT’S A BOOK. I’M NOT HOLDING BACK. ***

• OMG I’m going to cry so much.
• Peeta!  Poor baby!  😥
• Aw, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I wish you were still alive.
• Commander Paylor!  Woo!  You go girl!  (And we all know you get to be President in the end so BOOYAH)!
• Hey…. It’s Brienne from Game of Thrones.
• It’s kind of scary how accurately this parallels what’s going on in today’s world.  I feel like our politicians have done just as good a job of dividing our country as the Capitol did dividing Panem.
• Aw, wedding!
• Finnick… 😥
• You know, I named Sam Morneau in Boy Band after Sam Claflin.  Because he’s adorbs.
• Wait, she’s stowing away in the delivery crate?  That’s not how it happened in the book.
• She’s already in the Capitol?  Is this the final siege?  That happened awfully fast.
• Oh hey, Liam Hemsworth.  I don’t like Gale, but I definitely like you. 😉
• Also, we totally almost have the same birthday.
• Okay, people, can we just talk about how seriously adorable Pollux is?  Look at his little man bun and his sweet, expressive eyes.  I think I have a new Panem crush.
• This is all happening so much faster than it did in the book.  I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
• Poor Peeta!  Oh, my poor sweet little baker!
• The siege hasn’t even started and I’m already scared of those sewer lizards.
• These pods are freaking me out.  Again, too many parallels for what’s actually going on in some parts of the world.  Can you imagine seeing your city, your home, war-torn and deserted?  It’s terrifying.
• Finnick, why are you smiling?  Is this fun to you?
• RIP Boggs.  I hate it when the only authority figure you can trust dies.
• Finnick’s face when he saw his image displayed on TV, just as if he’d died in the Hunger Games!  That boy is giggling!  Oh my goodness.
• Coin, you are so full of it.
• President Snow correcting her. HA.
• Down to the sewers. Nope, nope, nope! There are lizards down there!
• Oh, POLLUX!  It’s okay my baby!  Please, let me hold you!
• Oh no.  I can hear them.  Oh no.  They’re coming.  OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.
• I don’t know if I can watch this.
• OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO MUCH SCARIER THAN THEY WERE IN THE BOOKS.
• Oh, I am going to have nightmares for sure.
• Finnick’s final battle.  What a send-off.
• Seeing his face on that wanted poster… OMG that hurts…
• BUT SEEING POLLUX CRYING HURTS MORE!  HIS BROTHER DIED.  THIS IS SO SAD.  POLLUX SHOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO BE SAD!
• I think I officially care more about Pollux than I do about any other character in this entire series.
• Liam Hemsworth is doing a really good job of making Gale even more of a douchebag than he was in the books.  Wow.
• The march on the Capitol.  This is it.  We all know what’s coming.  Unless you haven’t read the books or have been living under a rock.  Then I guess you have no idea.  But we know.  We know.
• That little girl crying over her mom.  This movie is SO sad.
• There it is.  That lone hovercraft.  I have the chills just thinking about it.  We all know.
• That’s it.
• I wish I could say I cared more about Prim as a character.  Her death just didn’t impact me the way it did in the book.  I only care about what happens to her because Katniss cares.
• Coin is such a scary character, because she’s essentially Snow, but she acts as though she’s good and diplomatic and that she cares about the people of Panem.  She doesn’t.  She’s just as power hungry and evil.  And Julianne Moore does an excellent job of portraying that.
• Her speech.  HA.  We all know what’s coming.  This is perfect.
• BYE FELICIA.
• The letter from Plutarch.  This scene might be the saddest one of all, because he was supposed to deliver that speech.
• HAYFFIE KISS HAYFFIE KISS OMG.
• THIS IS THE SHIP I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED.
• Though to be totally honest, I don’t actually think they would ever work out together.  Still, it was an adorable moment because Effie has a huge crush on him and I think he really respects her even though he’d never admit it.
• I’m glad they made Haymitch more of a father figure and less of a damaged alcoholic.  He was still broken in a lot of ways, but he was much stronger in the movies than he was in the books.
• So… Haymitch and Katniss go back to their destroyed district… Totally alone… Amidst the rubble…  How depressing is that?
• BUTTERCUP. Oh no… Oh no… This is another scene I’ve been dreading.
• I’m sad for Katniss, of course, but OMG I AM SO SAD FOR THAT CAT.  That cat is making me BAWL.
• Saddest moment.  Sad animals.  Can’t handle it.
• Peeta!  PEETA!  EVERLARK FOREVER.
• REAL.
• REAL.
• REAL.
• Peeta is officially the world’s cutest dad.

All in all, I still get emotional thinking about this movie.  Actually, the series in general.  It’s my favorite.  I love it.  I love everything about it.

Though I’ve got to tell y’all, as we were leaving the theater, all just completely wrecked and sobbing, some guy behind us starts singing at the top of his lungs, “SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AND YOU’RE TO BLAME!”  Yeah, that kind of killed the moment.  But it was pretty funny, I have to admit.

Well, I better be off.  I’m going to a NaNoWriMo event at a local library!   Talk to y’all soon!