Series goes from strength to strength

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2016)

Following on from the events of the first film, Snow organises a new Hunger Games featuring previous winners of the competition as his regime attempts to reassert control over Panem.
Despite the overlong run-time, we watch with great interest as Katniss transforms to become the reluctant symbol against the authoritarian establishment based in the Capitol. Katniss presents a headache to President Snow as she is someone who, rather than winning the games, has transcended them by beating the premise of the format. Thus, Snow believes that she needs to be dealt with. In a great inversion of more conservative gender roles, Katniss is the one that is busy undermining the regime while Peeta just mopes around. Moreover, I have yet to discover the purpose of the character of Gale. The love-triangle gets left to one side in this one and all the better for it.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is great as his character's arc takes an interesting trajectory- though its clear that he did not want anything to do with the costumes worn by everyone else- and Stanley Tucci is wonderful as the creepy, psychotic host of the whole 'show'. There is a hint of Heath Ledger's Joker in that role which must be a satire of the false, leering world of reality show television.
The final act was somewhat rushed and I had to read a plot summary of it to work out what I just saw. Despite that, I really enjoyed this and it sets up Mockingjay very well.