The Hunger Games is now just a cliché "defeat the evil empire" movie series

Rating: 6/10 (25 November 2013)

The draw of "The Hunger Games" movie series, to me, are The Hunger Games themselves. The concept of a Survivor style deathmatch where normal people have to fight to the death is very interesting. There's so much room for suspense, drama, betrayal, etc. The entire world of this movie is warped around The Hunger Games existing, so you think they'd make The Hunger Games the point of the movie.
WELL. In this movie they went full-force with the tired movie trope of "an evil empire with a tyrannical ruler that has armies of dudes with their faces covered up that oppress the normal people and jeez we have to stop them." At least 2/3rds of the movie is bent around this plot line, with The Hunger Games being a (pretty okay) last third. Needless to say, I think if the first movie had been this focused on the whole "evil empire" thing, people would have been confused and perturbed and not gotten the point of why The Hunger Games were even in the movie. So that's what this movie felt like.
The Hunger Games section doesn't even seem like it wants to be The Hunger Games. Most of the games is spent on running away from poison fog, fighting baboons, or trying to hold on to a spinning island. After the poison fog I was like "Okay, that was the cool non-human interaction thing. Let's see what they've got cooked up next." When the baboons showed up, I thought "Nooooo." The Hunger Games concept shouldn't be about people vs. CGI monsters, it should be about people vs. PEOPLE.
As I watched, it started to feel like the movie didn't even want people to battle to the death in an arena. But I thought "Surely, since there can only be one victor, we're going to get to some down-and-dirty fighting, betrayals, and emotions any minute now." NOPE. It turns out the movie really DIDN'T want any of that stuff to happen, because Katniss ends The Hunger Games early by blowing up the roof! So we see them fight some CGI, then the roof is blown up. Great.
In conclusion: This has turned into a series about taking down the evil empire, and it doesn't even want there to be Hunger Games in its own storyline anymore. Overall it's "okay" but really disappointing if the reason you got into these movies was because the "Hunger Games" concept sounded dramatic and interesting.