Having survived the 74th Hunger Hames, "Katniss" (Jennifer Lawrence) and her on-screen beau "Peeta" (Josh Hutcherson) now expect to live a life of luxury in their victor's village - but nope, devious president "Snow" (Donald Sutherland) has other plans for them. Having dispensed with the services of poor old Wes Bentley, he brings in Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Plutarch") to create a sort of Champions League affair with previous - supposedly forever exempt - winners to come back for a "quell". It's a good excuse to bring in some old blood two help out the youngsters - Jeffrey Wright ("Beetee") probably most notable amongst them, and we pretty much repeat the perilous escapades of the first film. This time, though, the threads of an uprising and a more collaborative approach to resistance start to win through; we see our combatants start to use their heads more, to thwart the divisive aims of their president and the story starts to gain a bit more momentum. Sadly, though - pretty as they are; the acting is still really weak. Lawrence just doesn't engage with me and the new "Finnick" (Sam Claflin) character again offers eye candy a-plenty, but squashing a cutie into lycra doesn't make him any better an actor. To be fair, they don't have a great deal by way of decent dialogue to deliver as almost all of this is an exercise of advanced CGI. The ending does, at least, offer us promise that the third leg of this franchise will offer more scope to vary the theme a bit, but as far as this is concerned, it's nothing at all special.
