For a secular movie, it was overall well made

Rating: 7/10 (9 March 2014)

The beginning was boring, and the boyfriend's make up was too noticeable, I could see the blush. He looks too clean cut for a mine worker, as if the cliché that the audience wouldn't want to see exposed skin etc, but we don't want to see unrealistic make up, we don't want the movie interrupted because we're thinking, "Why does this guy look like he was modeling?" and realize we're still back in our boring lives.
The beginning is so boring that after having seen it once that I felt nothing when watching it again and actually went to go to sleep. I found the part where Catnip (I know...) freaked out and the music with it to be HIGHLY irritating. The guy she shot should have screamed out, instead he falls like a dummy.
The parts of the movie that made it least convincing were:
1) The bad makeup on Catnip's bf 2) Catnip and Baker Boy's unconvincing acting in a few parts, specifically the train convo - it happened too fast and was too clean, it sounded scripted and pretentious, not casual, or fearful, like someone might suddenly pop out somewhere and decide to shoot them. Catnip and Bread Boy were too confident. They didn't have butterflies in their stomach like you'd expect for poor ignorants too have, worrying in general, having nightmares of killing people or being hung etc, instead Catnip just has one hallucination and one bad nightmare, and a bad experience with a black guy being killed. Catnip wasn't convincing after going into the house behind her and upstairs and being distraught over the old black guy being killed. The part where Baker Boy dies and she gets distraught was convincing, but there was a hint of fake, maybe because the tone of her skin should have been a little more red and her eyes more red from crying and so on. So a bad make up / effects job there, or lack of it.
Some might think Catnip wasn't acting well or too forced in the scene where she's talking with the leader at home, but I think it's just right, since teens and a little older can become arrogant with some great successes, especially if they haven't had such experience before, they get puffed up.
3) There wasn't much engaging conflict between the opposing players, or character development, it was as if they were all hidden and the main enemy was special effects as one reviewer implied. They made a movie over two hours long yet you don't get to know anyone else but the usual characters. Kind of a let down. I was hoping to see Tree Girl more since she was so lively, but instead her appearances were fleeting. One reviewer was disappointed that he didn't feel like cheering anyone on because it was a bland movie, and looking back on it, I thought that too, because it was too brainy and too distracting looking at certain ugly characters, and you know who I am talking about if you watched the movie. I don't want to think: ugly woman, ugly nerd guy, weird nerd guy acting like a psychopath, I want to think, "pretty, but strange girl, likable nerdy guy".
4) It often sounds like characters calling Katness "Catnip", I say Catnip because that's what I first thought her name was and it seems easier on my mind to say than the awkward "Katness". What a stupid name. I'd accept it more if there was some story behind the name, like when she was a baby she'd say catnip as katness and so was named that, but no, that's just her name with no explanation.
5) Peeta's name is soooooooooo annoying. It's like being reminded of PETA and pita bread at the same time! I don't want to think of that crazy ole PETA liberal lady that head's PETA or mocker Bill Maher while watching an epic movie ugh, or pita bread - it's dry and it sucks!
6) Is this a movie or a book problem?: Why was there no talk of anyone having previously escaped into the woods? Why no, "Remember the legend of Tommy Bob, how he escaped and came back and told us there was another village far away, free from the tyranny? Let's see if we can find it? Or is it in the next movie we find out there's a barrier?
Now the good: The acting was very good on the part of Haymitch and Effie was spectacular. I never once thought "It's Woody" or it was a fleeting thought. I think they over did his hair though, making it so messy it was ugly. Elizabeth Banks should be right up there in popularity with Catnip in most popular actors, because she was a star actor in this movie, the part where she cries gets me, and I'm a guy. I cry with her... And this one pose she does in the movie is so adorable. Why she's down at about 66 in actorworld stardom I think has to do with age discrimination/bias among the younger folk, or perhaps transferring their anger at the elite over on to her in real life since she played one. I think perhaps the weakest link was Baker Boy (Peeta) (is that supposed to sound like Pita on purpose, as in pita bread?). His acting was seemingly wood and emotionless in the first movie and this one. It comes across as psychopathic or like he just doesn't care about life. If it's meant to convey that he's a depressed guy, I never saw it. Maybe it's his eye structure...
I agree with one review I read that the ending was too abrupt, there should have been at least some captivating musical point to it, it felt like someone cut the film roll all the sudden and you were like, what, what the hell happened?