Having survived the 74th Hunger Hames, "Katniss" (Jennifer Lawrence) and her on-screen beau "Peeta" (Josh Hutcherson) now expect to live a life of luxury in their victor's village - but nope, devious president "Snow" (Donald Sutherland) has other plans for them. Having dispensed with the services of poor old Wes Bentley, he brings in Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Plutarch") to create a sort of Champions League affair with previous - supposedly forever exempt - winners to come back for a "quell". It's a good excuse to bring in some old blood two help out the youngsters - Jeffrey Wright ("Beetee") probably most notable amongst them, and we pretty much repeat the perilous escapades of the first film. This time, though, the threads of an uprising and a more collaborative approach to resistance start to win through; we see our combatants start to use their heads more, to thwart the divisive aims of their president and the story starts to gain a bit more momentum. Sadly, though - pretty as they are; the acting is still really weak. Lawrence just doesn't engage with me and the new "Finnick" (Sam Claflin) character again offers eye candy a-plenty, but squashing a cutie into lycra doesn't make him any better an actor. To be fair, they don't have a great deal by way of decent dialogue to deliver as almost all of this is an exercise of advanced CGI. The ending does, at least, offer us promise that the third leg of this franchise will offer more scope to vary the theme a bit, but as far as this is concerned, it's nothing at all special.

Good watch, would watch again, and can recommend. This is a great survivalist story in a horrible setting (wonderfully set, written to be a horrible world). We get all the great fun that we got from the original movie, and then we add in the whole (spoiler) element. It's really what makes the movie and leads us into the next arc, but I won't mention it. With Snow just on an angry tantrum spree (literally using childish tantrum words) you can tell very early that he's defeated himself, it's just a matter of time. Jennifer Lawrence is a big enough personality to carry the movie and she does with everyone else playing support roles centered around her. It was fantastic to see Jena Malone come on board as I feel she adds something special to everything she's in. If you can stand the battle royale concept, this this is a good watch for you.

More of the same stuff. Lawrence is not bad and I think Josh Hutcherson is a great discovering but that's mostly it.

I still do not agree with the 9 and 10 star ratings but I feel this movie is slightly better than the first one. This is primarily because Jennifer Lawrence’s character is more mature and she seems more comfortable in the role. She is no longer an immature, naive and lost child. At least not most of the time. The entire setup is still as ludicrous as before. It is a silly and depressing background scenario and it is definitely not my cup of tea. The people running around in ridiculous hair-do, makeup and showing a severe lack of intelligence is not making things better. The enjoyment of this movie comes when the games finally start. These parts are definitely better than in the first movie. The various dangers are well done, the effects good and there is an interesting overall theme to the arena and the dangers instead of randomly throwing new menaces at players that seemed to be the strategy in the first movie. To me the enjoyment of this movie is in the games themselves. This is probably because I just do not like the rest of the plot. The depressing scenario. The nonsensical and/or oppressive behavior, backstabbing etc. etc.