If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with.

Rating: Null/10 (8 March 2014)

This is the second in the series of 'Hunger Games' movies based on the books. My wife read them, I didn't. We saw this one last night on Blu- Ray, about a year and a half after we saw the first one. The Blu-Ray picture and sound are quite good, it gave my subwoofer a good work out.
All the main characters are back, played by the same actors. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, Willow Shields as Primrose Everdeen, Donald Sutherland as President Snow, and Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket.
In this episode a year has passed, it is the 75th hunger games, the yearly event to remind all of the failed revolution. But Snow is still unhappy how the prior one ended, with Katniss and Peeta both surviving, by threatening to eat the poison berries. Snow wants Katniss dead, but wants it to happen in a way for all to see.
So they change the rule, the tributes this year will be chosen only from among the prior victors. This of course is a big betrayal because victors had all been promised a free life after their own hunger games.
So this one is about the competition and the alliances, Snow determined they will die, Katniss determined she and Peeta will survive.
Frankly, much of the middle I found a bit tedious, the parts where all the contestants were in the domed forest and had to face various dangers. It just didn't seem interesting to me. I had a lot more interest in the opening scenes leading up to the actual competition, and the closing scenes. Still, a good movie, worth the watch.
SPOILERS: As it turned out several behind the scenes were conspiring to make sure Katniss and Peeta survived, and in fact when it was all done they described it as the start of the revolution. Not only does Katniss survive, plus Peeta and several others, she managed to shoot an arrow, with copper wire attached, into the roof as an artificial lightning bolt hit a tree on schedule, this destroyed the dome and structure came raining down. She and the others were rescued and nursed back to health.