A Great Archetype of The Hollywood Business

Rating: 4/10 (8 December 2013)

After a massive let down from watching the first movie, I was surprisingly curious enough to wonder where the story would go in the second. My main issue in the first film was a lack of a compelling and believable story, but I walked in the theater to see this one anyway, hoping the film makers sought redemption for what was so abysmal. It didn't surprise me much however to find that story was once again dry, rigid, and crusted over with garbage, just like a dog turd on a summer sidewalk.
The story continues directly from the events following the victory of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in the hunger games. President Snow crafts the two characters towards into public figures, forcing them to positively represent the government to gain more popularity for the hunger games. The movie actually starts out quite promising as we see a great deal of tension growing between the districts and the state. We see the very beginning of martial law come into effect, rebels planning to coalesce, and fear permeating through the characters. It looks very good, until Hollywood decides drop by the scriptwriters' office with another visit. This movie's only purpose is to give you hope of something good and then crush by sending you back to the train wreck of a film we experienced in the first movie. By this point, if you haven't done so already, get ready to kick back and watch the nonsensical onslaught continue. That's right, you're in for another hunger game!
About less than halfway into the movie, the viewer is virtually left watching the first movie all over again. The director should have saved time filming and simply cut and paste the first movie in at this point. While the characters are busy killing each other for the second time, it is hard not to hope that we will get some more information about what is happening on the home front. What is the government doing? How are the districts reacting? How are the families of the main characters in district 12? Rather than our questions getting answered, all we get are some more scenes of Katniss and her bow, Peeta falling in love with her for the second time, and poorly developed characters (who we are supposed to feel sorry for) die. Also, similarly to the first movie, we see more attempts of intimidation among the players, chances to win sponsorships, lots of prep talk before the big fight, and a shot of all of the contestants broadcasted in their kooky outfits before they get shipped off to the slaughter house.
There are a few things I should probably mention before some fans of the movie do. Not that it matters, but the hunger game in this movie is slightly different from that of the first. In response to the uproars in the districts, the government expresses their displeasure by sending previous victors from each district back into the hunger games. This really makes no difference for the viewer, since we see over 20 new bloodthirsty contestants besides Katniss and Peeta anyway. A few other trivial differences include the new arena the game takes place in. This time, the characters start the fight in the water rather than on land. Also, the whole arena is apparently bigger (even though it just looks like another forest), and there are environmental hazards that occur on an hourly schedule. It really doesn't matter, and it is painful to think that the filmmakers think they can win their audience over with such a frivolous change. In my opinion, the only thing that this franchise really has that wins its popularity is their main cast, Jennifer Lawrence. But that doesn't fix the story. The essence of the film is still fundamentally flawed. It is no different than trying to treat the scent of a puddle of diarrhea with fabreeze air freshener!
At one point in the movie, Katniss and her friends contrive a plot to eliminate the remaining contestants. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the plan's execution, she somehow figures out how to escape the arena, and the entire infrastructure collapses. Suddenly Katniss is rescued by a ship, as if the whole plan to escape was coordinated from the beginning, and she requests to return to her home. She and the audience learn that district 12 has been destroyed. The movie ends. A long silence follows until the credits roll along with an animation of the mocking jay pin. Not only is this one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings to a film in the history of films, but the director adds insult to injury as he essentially tells us, "Too bad, you missed out on all of the important stuff that happened in the real world, and instead, you got to watch the first movie over again!" Not only do we get a repeat of what already happened, but we are left in complete darkness and miss out of every single detail that could have potentially progressed the storyline. The movie could have literally been cut in half if the whole hunger game was removed, and we still would have gotten the same amount of essence from the story.
This movie is a prime example of how Hollywood takes something with a lot of potential and strips it of all nutrients until it becomes as bare as a pile of elephant dung. The film is nothing more than a monotonous moneymaking expedient that deserves to be flushed down the toilet! The only reason why I regard it slightly higher than the first is for the first few scenes of the movie that actually grabbed my attention. In retrospect, that momentary grasp of interest wasn't worth the other two hours of an appalling scam.