The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

I haven't read the books. I probably said this last year or the year before when I watched the first film and loved it but I have not read any of the books so I don't know how true they are to the books.

Having loved the first one I had high hopes for the next installments of the franchise but I fear that they may not be reached. Personally I just didn't enjoy this one as much. It seemed like the point of the first film- which was to screw over the system, cause a revolution and win the hunger games so that they never had to do it again was completely crossed out, scribbled over and undermined in this film because they had to do it all again.

The ending of the first film was fantastic. The film could have been a standalone and the only people that would have cared would have been die hard believers. No romance, nothing between them, it was like the first film had all just been a dream and when they opened their eyes they were back in district 12.

So putting all that aside and thinking about the film as a sequel following a book what can I say? Nice to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in a film- it has been a while since he was on the blog and this is possibly one of the few films that he has actually featured in since his death- certainly this has to be one of the last ones that he actually made. I felt sorry for the guy that was killed at the end of the first film. Hoffman's character took over from the previous guy that was murdered but I really felt like he didn't actually deserve to die. We all know that one person or a select group can not over run the nation or population of the people living within their authority- everything- maze runner, V for Vendetta and many other films state this quite clearly but then this is fiction and not supposed to be thinking about things like this until the final chapter. His character had many twists and turns and actually at the end of the film I was taken by surprise and am now forced to watch the final two films just to see how it ends.

I don't want to knock 'The Hunger Games' anymore than I already have. The films have been terrific but I have lost count of the amount of times that I have felt that the second film/book has been unnecessary. I know that without it we wouldn't be able to have a third film/ book in any capacity and that mostly the third installments are better than the second (the matrix excluded) but I just wish that I would find a series where every film and book is as good and necessary as the others. Here's to hope!

Next up- The Expendables 2, followed by Flashdance.