WAR is messy and, like the Hunger Games themselves, it doesn't seem right to declare anyone the winner.

That's the message of the dark, final conclusion of The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay - Part 2.

Fans and cinema-goers familiar with the series, set in a totalitarian society where young people kill each other for sport on TV, will already know this isn't the type of world where people live happily ever after.

But amidst the darkness is a ray of hope that the residents of Panem can have a free future, and that the survivors of the war with the Capitol and its menacing leader President Snow can build a new world for themselves.

Jennifer Lawrence, more than in any of the previous Hunger Games films, plays a wide range of emotions from fragility and vulnerability to steely determination. Mockingjay - Part 2 goes into some pretty disturbing territory as Peeta struggles to right himself after being brainwashed by the Capitol.

He says ugly things and poses a real physical threat to Katniss when he ends up being part of her troupe of propaganda filmmakers who follow the frontline soldiers into a heavily booby trapped Capitol.

Josh Hutcherson is excellent as the tormented Peeta, who tries to discern real memories from implanted ones but is regularly thwarted when gunfire and other attacks send him into a rage.

The group is forced to go underground to try to reach Snow's mansion undetected, but in some truly tense and scary moments it's clear they're not any safer in the sewers than they were on the surface.

The struggle for Katniss's heart, or rather her struggle within herself, between Peeta and Gale plays out in between the action but it's not the primary focus of the storyline.

Running parallel to the physical assault on the Capitol is the war for minds playing out in televised propaganda broadcasts by both Presidents Snow and Coin.

The film stays pretty true to the second half of Suzanne Collins' final book. While it and Mockingjay - Part 1 might feel slow in places, there would have been too much to cram into just one film.

Mockingjay - Part 2 is a satisfying if sombre end to a pretty grown-up young adult series.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Julianne Moore.
Director: Francis Lawrence
Rating: M
Verdict: 3.5 stars