Great!... if you're a fan of movie trailers

Rating: 3/10 (20 December 2013)

I wasn't overly impressed with the first Hunger Games movie but saw this one to let the series have another chance to win me over. Afterwards I'm afraid I think the first one was actually better.This felt like an extended trailer.
Game of Thrones and The Hobbit get a lot of stick for their fluff and filler but this film takes the gold. The plot progression from the first film to the end of this is insulting. the narrative focus on huge sections of drawn out breathy dialogue and superfluous story threads, followed by a half backed build up to and then unconvincing replay of the games from the first film, which no one seems very in to and the curtain falls on the same exposition we established at the end of the first film, in an abrupt, unfulfilling brick-wall anticlimax!
Story wise there's the ongoing duality of Katniss and Peter's (Peeta's!?) faux romance, but it's still as wooden as before with only token justification. Evil Colonel Sanders type President is being even more needlessly violent and oppressive to a vastly outgunned underclass and vacuous character redundancy Peeta needs saving more times then princess' Leia and Peach combined. A central element is how crucial Katniss is to some revolution you don't get to enjoy but exactly why is so weak and the plight so tangential to the main thread that it's difficult to get invested in.
The visuals and action are quite pretty but most of this is thanks to expensive graphics and at this point big budget films can't keep getting points for this. I'm told it's close to the book but again that's no justification for a boring film, and in a death match, can someone please tell me the point of all this teaming up!?
My Favourite, most genuine and emotive performance was given by supporting role Elizabeth Banks. Her brief but touching portrayal as the product of a superficial world trying desperately to communicate deep, empathic feelings beyond her experience was my highlight of the film. Her internal conflict and the face value absurdity of her gesture are a poetically haunting commentary of the Capitol's society, bravo!
Overall not worth the ticket price, probably more palatable to franchise fans.