Parents' Guide to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

Thanks to director Francis Lawrence and, above all, star Jennifer Lawrence, this final film is a fitting tribute to Suzanne Collins' unforgettable heroine. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 even improves on some of the book's weaker elements; Lawrence the director knows how to use Lawrence the actor's vulnerability to explore what a messy thing indeed it is to be a hero—to be the Chosen One, to know you're somehow more useful as a martyr to the cause than as a very real, confused, and emotional person. The Katniss of Mockingjay isn't as singularly focused as the one in the arena. This Katniss is sure of very little other than that Snow must go, and Lawrence beautifully captures the excruciating pain of Katniss' journey, of her loneliness and heartbreak and fierce devotion to those she loves.

Very few book series have received such a faithful, fabulously performed, and visually appealing set of cinematic adaptations. That's not to say that the film is perfect: It fast-forwards a few dramatic elements that some book fans will no doubt miss, like the blossoming friendship between Katniss and Johanna (Jena Malone) that gets compressed into a couple of conversations, or the strength of Katniss' platonic feelings for fellow Hunger Games victor Finnick, whose marriage to Annie (Stef Dawson) is similarly glossed over in one quick scene. But otherwise, the director and screenwriter keep the pace brisk, even as it seems like one long, deadly obstacle course to Katniss' inevitable showdown with Snow. At one point, Katniss asks someone why he's helping her, and he replies that she's earned a long and peaceful life. After four films of Lawrence playing Katniss, who wouldn't agree?