Lacking something special

Rating: 5/10 (10 April 2014)

I gave this movie a rating of 5 because it wasn't all bad. However, the movie was clearly pushed through on the success of the first.
This time, all the anticipation was missing and the depth of most of the characters seemed lost. I didn't feel I was rooting for the lead character to survive, as I had done in the first. Some of the "participants" to the hunger-game had nothing to contribute to the storyline at all. The number of cannon (lives lost) shots seemed no- eventful. The rolling death-fog seemed to be too quick to cause havoc (almost like they had nothing else to fill the dome with) and the idea of the spinning time island was figured out far too easily, (yes I know it was a plot to get them out but more anticipation and cunning was expected). It felt like we were being quickly ushered through the storyboard and not immersed into an exciting plot, as it should have been.
The whole movie just seemed to lack some special ingredient that was there for the first. It maybe that it should have been one long release and not split, we'll see on the next film. The twist at the end just finished off the disappointment for me.
On the plus side, I do want to know how it pans out and if the next release will make a difference to the overall movie franchise. There were some nice effects too.