No, this doesn't quite 'catch fire', but it is a solid piece of dystopian-set action film-making

Rating: 6/10 (18 September 2018)

How much you like "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" will depend heavily on whether you took to the first film - that is to say, if you did not, then you will curse having to sit through two hours or so here of what is essentially the same content retreated, if not entirely rerun. As far as I can care enough to ascertain, there are two major differences between this entry and its 2012 predecessor: firstly, the fighting arena has changed and now consists of a strange clock-like locality wherein various threats to all are triggered at specific times in order to make the contest a little more interesting; and secondly, the fighters involved are all former champions, so the stakes and intensity are increased.
For the totally uninitiated, "The Hunger Games" unfolds in a cruel English-speaking autocracy which consists of various districts in what is either the far future or a parallel universe. The society prides itself on a kind of faux-patriotism, or po-faced ideas linked to national identity, which are connected to unparalleled honour to the state and its premier as well as its militaristic history and seemed to come out best (or worst) in various Communist societies throughout history: think Cuba or North Korea. At the peak of its powers, the Soviet Union was probably one of the most patriotic nations on Earth. The eponymous Games are a yearly contest whereby a male and a female between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected at random from the aforementioned districts to fight until only one remains - is entwined with the essence of the characteristics that are meant to make up the core of the nation's citizens by Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland), its President.
Having been the one to have survived the slog of going through with this in the first film, the conspicuously named Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives a life in her village not too detached to that of what she would be doing anyway prior to the first film's events, but with this new-found (and thoroughly unwanted) stardom. Living it with her is Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, whose importance in Everdeen's life is that they were essentially 'joint' victors in the last edition after having come to resist duelling to the death and therefore disobeying the State's wishes. But whatever - they live because the twist made for great TV.
Central to the previous film was the notion of what constitutes entertainment, and what violence does to a society and a person when it is compartmentalised for amusement or pleasure. In 1998's "Small Soldiers", a slimy business executive in charge of marketing action figure toys, whose sole purpose was to beat seven-shades out of one another, dodged the accusation that they were imparting the wrong ideas into the minds of the children that would play with them by pointing out that "...it's not violence, it's action." In Snow's world, a population's interest in the hunger games resemble the hordes' interest in our own for the latest smash-'em-up blockbuster or war themed video game. When it seems evident Snow can utilise the friendship Peeta and Katniss have for one another to burnish his own status, he realises he can keep a population in check and quell a rebellion - not unlike how reality TV and soap operas make for both quaint distractions and politically charged opportunities to force the average joe into thinking there's something wrong with them if they don't agree with the mainstream.
It's not that Peeta doesn't like Katniss - for someone living under the leaden skies of a North American dictatorship in relative poverty, she's not unattractive. He thinks she's "stubborn", but "good with a bow" - in her own opinion, she "isn't very good at friends." Very little of this actually matters by the end, though - the film isn't really a character study, it's an action film attempting allegory which is probably a little too long. Did any of these things change in Katniss by the end? Not really, and we are not granted satisfying closure anyway due to the need to tee up a third entry, which is handles clumsily.
Before all that are the special 75h edition of the Hunger Games, which pits all the previous winners from other villages/divisions against one another in a great big battle royal set in an enclosed jungle space housing its own biodiversity; special power up 'drops' and a set of weaponry befitting to the skills of its competitors. The event is, in truth, an opportunity for the establishment to knock-off the troublesome lovebirds, who are doing more to foment unrest than sooth it, and replace them with a new 'couple' who will act as the great metaphor for the stability of the regime. For the film, it allows itself permission to cynically bring together proven battle hardened champions to face off with one another, essentially permitting more action and fighting than if the competitors were newbies with no clue as to what to do.
This particular entry is not without merit, but it lacks something special for it to be anything more than what it is - a moderate actioner. Curiously, I did not feel for the characters involved in the same way that I did in the first film, and the actual 'games' themselves feel oddly synthetic, even incidental, where before they felt first like a brooding event and then then became a gruelling catharsis. The film handles the supposed tension between Snow's regime and the rest of the population quite well, without really presenting to us any of the large-scale uprisings that we're supposed to feel are endemic - this is achieved through Sutherland's acting more than anything, but you genuinely sense a political wrestling match is unfolding out there somewhere. When all is said and done, a dislike of the first film will probably lead to a positive hatred of this one. Enjoy the first, and you will gleam plenty from the continuation of the story here.