The Hunger Games: Catching Z's

Rating: 3/10 (4 August 2014)

Watching the second installment of the Hunger Games saga is like watching the fifth Harry Potter or the second Lord of the Rings movie. Annoyingly drawn-out, more of the same, not really worth the time save for a few important details which get used later on. Nothing really happens, it's all just gearing up for a grand finale which you know is coming, and which will pretty much rewrite the rules anyway.
Yes, the setting feels more natural. Yes, the Games are deadlier than ever. There's more futuristic gizmos like... forcefields! Yes, there is more more mature character depiction. But do we really need to *see* all this? From the first movie it was already clear that Panem's government is a nasty and callous dictatorship which does not shirk away from sadism (in the form of the Games themselves by forcing adolescents to compete). The patterns of repression are boringly stereotypical, complete with anonymous masked soldiers with big sticks and military hardliners who have testosterone for blood.
The entire movie could have been reduced to, say, Katniss and Peeta holding too many revolutionary speeches during their victors' tour; and Snow then (in a mildly interesting twist) accidentally killing Primrose, setting off the revolution. The effect is the same compared to what happens in the actual movie, but it only takes 15 to 20 minutes of your time instead of a gruelling 146. But then the audience wouldn't get to fawn at length over a good-looking and sportive natural female beauty, would they?
I am reminded of Paul Verhoeven's The Running Man which I saw a long, long time ago. The Hunger Games are in many ways strikingly similar... and although The Running Man isn't perfect either, it at least gets one thing very right: over and done with in a single movie. And now I hear that the third movie in the Hunger saga is to be released in two parts. Yay. Why have the audience pay once for a story when you can get them to pay four times, eh, Mr Marketeer?
Really, only see this at home. If at all. Or read the book—which by the way I haven't.