Trailer Tuesday: The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2

Release Date: November 20th, 2015

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Donald Sutherland

Director: Francis Lawrence (Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1, Constantine, I Am Legend)

Pre-Trailer Thoughts: The very uneven “Girl on Fire” film series comes to an end this November. Honestly, with the exception of Catching Fire, I’ve been kind of underwhelmed by this whole film franchise. I’m hoping Mockingjay- Part 2 rights some of the wrongs that I felt about the previous entry, but I’m not totally 100% sure it will. -LJF

Pre-Trailer Thoughts: I’m really out of step when it comes to the Hunger Games novels and movies, having not read of seen any of them. Still, this is the final chapter in a massively popular and well reviewed series so I am somewhat excited to see the way the hype around this film will grow in the next few months. – JTM

Rate the Trailer: 2.5 out of 5. To say I’m excited for this movie is not accurate. In fact, my hype for the last film featuring Katniss is barely there. Am I interested in it? Yes, definitely. But the trailer is kind of blah, save for Finnick’s line about it being the “76th Hunger Games.” I honestly don’t remember if that was said in the book or not, but whatever the case, it definitely added some oomph to the atmosphere. Hopefully another trailer released closer to the movie might bring along some new footage that hypes me up. -LJF

Rate the Trailer: 3 out of 5. I no doubt would have appreciated this trailer more if I had a better understanding of the series, but I was still impressed by it. The really enjoy the idea that the booby-trapped capitol city has become a defacto Hunger Games competition, and all of the quick shots of actions scenes we get are appropriately epic. I had almost forgotten that this will be the final major role of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s career, so the glimpse we get of him in the trailer was particularly striking. – JTM

Theater, No Thanks, Rent, Undecided? Theater. I’ve seen all the Hunger Games movies first on the big screen, and this one will fall in line with the other ones. I think my biggest concern with this and my “meh” feelings on it is that I could not stand the end of the book; the first two were great, but the whole of the Mockingjay novel left a bad taste in my mouth. If I’m ragging too early on the movie, its probably because of my thoughts on the book. I just hope the movie can make something better out of it. Gripes aside, I’m interested to see how it all ends from a visual perspective -LJF

Theater, Rent, Undecided, No Thanks? Rent. I’m sure I will catch up on this series one day, but it’ll likely be once every movie is available for streaming online. There’s really no point to me going out and catching this movie in theaters if I haven’t seen the previous three films, so I’ll be taking a pass (although this isn’t a condemnation of the film, more of me for being so lazy with my movie watching habits). – JTM

The Hunger Games: MockingjayPart 2 Takes Aim one last time on November 20th, 2015

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