Stop me if you’ve heard this before: a popular young adult novel is not quite as compelling on the screen as it is on the page.

The finale of the Hunger Games series, “Mockingjay — Part 1” holds up to its reputation as the least-interesting book of the series, along with being the least interesting film installment yet.

As a two-hour experience, “Mockingjay — Part 1” serves as little more than an unnecessarily extended introduction to the action piece that is Part 2.

Jennifer Lawrence feels a bit out of place in “Mockingjay,” where she feels she needs to oversell each scene she’s included in to emphasize the emotional center of the plot.

While I had seen this issue before in the previous films (it was minimalized fairly well in “Catching Fire”), it was no less disappointing to see yet again.

Aside from characters devoid of any note whatsoever (Peeta!) and a solid, if unspectacular, performance from the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, I’m struggling to see why this necessitated a two-film split.

Before you start throwing your Hunger Games box sets at me, I get it – splitting this into two parts erases several immediate concerns.

The director is free to retain most of the plot’s key points without cutting out important details or minor characters that would otherwise not be included.

Part of the existence of a two-part end to a trilogy – just a reminder, that’s three, not four – is due to the length of what needs to be emphasized through the film.

That’s understandable, in some ways. There are more than enough scenes that could easily be cut from “Part 1,” but we can let this slide for the moment.

The main issue here is one of moviegoers continuously falling for a clumsy model that depends entirely on their support.

Without the reliance of a good box office intake, these two-part films would not require even a mere thought.

Considering that larger novels like J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series have been cut down into two-and-a-half hour films with ease, it is very possible to ensure a film retains quality while staying true to the book.

Unfortunately, studios are smart, in that they exploit the public’s basic needs – if we want to see something, we want to see it now.

Thus, here we are: trilogies are no longer truly a three-film set.

Sure, you can claim the two-part finale is, you know, one singular story.

But I’m not getting back the two hours each that I will have spent watching two separate films, assuming I’m still around to see the second half next year.

This is the new trilogy, only because tetralogy (four-work sets) doesn’t seem to be catching on like it should be.

Perhaps that could be our word of the year.