The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

(Image credit: Murray Close)

Jennifer Lawrence's renegade warrior Katniss Everdeen reaches the final stage in her struggle to liberate dystopian future state Panem

Jennifer Lawrence's renegade warrior Katniss Everdeen reaches the final stage in her struggle to liberate dystopian future state Panem.

Ever more anguished yet still resilient, she turns a supposedly behind-the-front-line propaganda mission into an unsanctioned quest to assassinate Donald Sutherland's ruthless President Snow.

As Katniss and her handpicked team advance towards the heart of the decadent Capitol, there are times when this last adventure feels something of a trudge, although a breathless, adrenaline-surging chase through sewers and tunnels quickens the pace.

There’s too little of the saga's colourful supporting characters, such as Woody Harrelson's boozy dandy and Elizabeth Banks' vain fashionista, and the resolution of the Katniss-Gale-Peeta love-triangle intrigue is less than spellbinding.

Fortunately, however, Lawrence's steely magnetism holds everything together, her magnificent heroine embodying the tale's tensions and conflicts while remaining to the end a beacon of integrity and hope.