Reviews

This season is strange in that it feels backwards. The first two episodes were my favourites of the whole series, and then it gradually grew weaker and weaker, until the final three episodes were some of the weakest I'd seen from this show.

Characters who were handled carefully in the previous season became useless and annoying, relationships felt forced and overplayed and as a whole, the story felt out of focus.

The real problems surfaced around the halfway mark. Most of the time people were drifting out of character and subplots were cropping up with no seemingly logical reason other than to create unneeded drama. In the end all these subplots had achieved was to hold back the main plot more than it should have been.

But it was Nazir's character that was the biggest disappointment this season. "Broken Hearts" was the worst episode of the series, followed by "In Memoriam" which was the second weakest. Both served to turn Nazir into a terrorist caricature plucked right out of 24. In the first season I had seen Nazir as almost humane, in a way. He was a terrorist, of course, but he seemed to have some sort of philosophy to him. This season, he wasn't reluctant to admit that no such thing was true; he was your standard terrorist.

After watching the first season I made a prediction that the series would lose its foundation and stray off in new directions, and I'm half-right. The show is desperately clutching on to its roots and seems ready to milk its premise more than it should be while slowly burying itself in subplots and far-fetched plot twists.

You can tell this movie was going for depth (which it sometimes achieved) and, during the games themselves, intensity, but it never quite reaches the heights it could have.

The first thing I noticed about the film was the directing style, which had a "Children of Men" approach to it at times (which is interesting considering Alfonso Cuaron is directing the sequel) but instead goes a little overboard. Some shots were extreme close ups and extremely shaky at the same time, giving you a slight headache within the first ten minutes, but that soon ended and for the most part the directing was pretty good.

What keeps this film at six stars for me were the games themselves. The build up to it was quite strong--the emphasis on getting sponsors, the reality show feel the games were supposed to be for Panem, the survival factors--but those did not come to fruition during the games themselves. Haymitch makes it quite clear to Katniss that she needs to find water. He says something along the lines of "water is your new best friend", and yet she enters the arena, escapes the initial carnage, finds some water almost immediately and never needs to restock for the rest of the film. As for sponsors (I'm assuming those "gift drops" are provided by sponsors), we only ever really see that come into play once or twice--a few quick shots of Haymitch shaking hands with some stylish dressers.

But my absolute biggest letdown was the ending. I liked the fact that the rules were changed to allow two competitors from the same district to survive, only to have that rule revoked at the very end. But then, Katniss boldly tries to commit suicide along with Peeta, which draws the sympathy of the Game maker who ends it there with both surviving? I understand the point is for Katniss to be a symbol of rebellion but the whole film seemed to be leading up to Peeta's death (and it should have, because now I fear the next film might involve a sappy Twilight-esque love triangle between Peeta, Gale and Katniss) Still, it was a good film overall and I'm hoping the sequel will top it.