The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The adventures of Katniss Everdeen continue in this, for readers of the book, perfectly watchable but for all others, slightly mystifying sequel that sees the heroine propelled to celebrity status, on tour by high-speed train across 'the districts', involved in backstage image management and audience manipulation, becoming the reluctant figurehead of a rebel movement, then thrown into the death arena that now features mandrills, oh, and poison mist, oh, and lightning, oh, and tidal waves, oh, and mockingbirds, oh, and wait, it's a clock...?

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Hunger Games (2012)

If in your mind Big Brother evictions and "rose ceremonies" lack a little bloodspill and need, say, a few more snapped necks and some more arrows to the contestants' eye sockets, you'll enjoy this movie based on the first of Suzanne Collins' books about young Katniss Everdeen selected to participate in a televised fight to the death, but personally I fail to see why this series is so popular given its charmless and unnecessary extrapolation of the tenets of reality tv to their most violent extreme.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS