Go catch fire already

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2013)

Caught fire on Friday itself, but watched it once again tonight on DigiMAX (tired of calling it LieMax - ceasing.desisting from now on, sorry {An}sari).
The movie looks great, and I'd have to call it one of the best book2movie adaptations ever (beats, by a whisker, my previous fav YA book2movie adaptation, by Alfonso Cuarón, 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'). Lawrence (Katniss) makes us root for this (unsympathetic, if you consider what Gale/Liam H says) character more than ever, along with Josh Hutcherson making Peeta his own, all under the able tutelage of Francis 'I am Legend' 'Water for elephants' Lawrence. This IS the better 'Hunger games' movie, though it does owe everything it is to its predecessor, helmed no less efficiently by Gary 'Pleasantville' 'Seabiscuit' Ross. Donald Sutherland is more than smarmy, and is the perfect villain, and while criticism is being leveled at Philip Seymour Hoffman for his interpretation of Plutarch, I thought it was, like everything Hoffman does, pitch-perfect. The movie looks fabulous, and sounds great too. The final 50-55 minutes make this worthy of IMAX-viewing, considering all the IMAX footage that was filmed (though I'd still have preferred to watch it on a bigger screen than the one in Blr).
Among the new characters introduced, those played by Jena 'Sucker Punch' Malone (excellent!), Jeffrey Wright (seen here after his strong turn this February in the underrated/misunderstood 'Broken city'), Sam Claflin (one of the worst things about 'Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On stranger tides', not letting that affect him in the least, completely 'owning' the character of Finnick Odair), Amanda Plummer, Lynn Cohen stand out, ably supporting Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci and Lenny Kravitz. One of the best parts about the movie is how the director is Not in a rush to get to the action, but lets everything unfold organically (kinda what I loved about 'The town' or 'Argo') and still when the action happens, there is No let- up. Best part, as mentioned earlier, is this is how it plays out Exactly in the book(s). With Francis Lawrence taking up directorial duties once (nee, twice) again on the 3rd book's movie adaptation(s), I feel the series is in (super)safe hands. More on that below.
(SPOILER Territory, so please proceed only if you've seen the movie/read the book/s)
Considering this is continuing with the 3rd book, Mockingjay, being split into 2 movies (I'm still confounded by that decision), I kinda expected the final cliffhanger scene to be different, with the intro of a major character that takes center-stage over the course of this tale, but that is the only mis-step that I can think of.