 I will say this about the Hunger Games, I've never in my life gotten into a final installment of a movie franchise with such little interest. Let's rank these movies now. People were pretty butt-hurt when they found out the final Harry Potter book would be split into two movies. Granted, the final book is 759 pages long, I looked it up, and there was a lot of ground to cover. When Twilight was announced that it too would cut its last book in half, I'm sure was also met with some groans from the fanbase. I don't really know as I refuse to associate with such folk. Even if here comes Maki and Jade, the little lunge in that hood. Against all odds, it too has to split its book for cash-grabbing purposes. And yes, the book is only 351 pages deep, I looked it up. And yes, it's so easy to digest, you could read it while ordering a pizza from Domino's. And yes, it's so simple and straightforward the whole damn thing could be summed up in a tweet. But I went into part one with an open mind. After all, the second film was such a huge step forward for this series, maybe giving it two more films would be a good thing. My fears quickly became all too real as we watched Katniss jump, leap frog from district to district giving her rally cries. The movie's a chore to get through with almost nothing to show for the hours invested. The thing's more padded out than a 16-year-old's bra. The performances, the direction, the score, it's all done very well, which makes the whole damn affair even more frustrating. There's great actors being wasted, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore giving very little to do. Had this book not been split into two movies, we would have had one solid two, two and a half hour final act, and we maybe could have avoided some of the missteps like the whole Katniss hanging tree song that was later remixed for radio play for the months to follow. Remember what I just complained about? It's still relevant. This should have been a ball to the wall final chapter with a third act to blow everyone in the theater away. The book is easily the worst of the three in my opinion, but it had that crazy finale that really hit hard. The movie failed miserably on that front, giving it maybe 30 seconds of screen time. The one part of this series, they should have slow rolled, was rushed past without a second thought. There is a strong middle act for one, so we get 35 to 40 minutes straight action going on. We get scenes like Finnick taking out hounds in the sewers. We get that black ooze shit coming out of the ground, taking out people left and right. Well, maybe just two or three. Whatever, there's still death and that counts for something. Everything else is humdrum. Even the music takes a backseat. I know it's a drab tale, but when characters are sidelined for so long, it's hard to feel any sort of sympathy, joy, or sadness when their fates are determined. You might be watching this and thinking, this guy's a dick, and he's nitpicking a bunch of little things. He's dick picking. That's not the case. These are important pieces of a puzzle. You have to have a good story that moves well. You have to have characters you can resonate with, and you got to have a good damn conclusion. All of that was missing here. It's lifeless. It's joyless. It's like inside-out characters without any of the good stuff that goes along with them. Truth be told, Katniss out of the bag. I don't really like this movie either. The only one I do like is the number one film on this list. Director Gary Ross seemed very out of his element when taking on the series. His previous jobs were Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, movies that are nowhere near the scope of action and budget Hunger Games required. The PG-13 rating was also a very poor decision. I understand these are books meant for young adults, but the material presented is very grim stuff. Watering it down for the masses just to get the ticket sales seems like a bullshit move, but that's kind of how this whole series has been. It's all about making profits and not much else. I was at one point told to compare Hunger Games with Battle Royale, and I did watch Battle Royale. It's a hard R movie. It has a very similar premise, basically the exact same thing. What I didn't enjoy was how silly and dumb it was. So Hunger Games gets the balance rate of the drama and the emotion and the heavy handedness, but it fails when it delivers the action pieces, the part that really matters, seeing the traumatized scenes, the expressions on kids' faces, the audience reactions. It's just not there. To get around that whole kids killing kids vibe, the director focuses the camera on everything but the action. If you told me that the camera crew was just throwing the cameras to each other, I would have believed you. The shaky cam is nonsense. It's distracting and adds nothing to the picture. There are strong performances by the leads though. A little Woody goes a long way and I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Banks is in every movie ever made now. She is the white female Samuel L. Jackson. I don't think she turns down a script and I think in the background at least, she's there somewhere. There's some solid drama. The training scenes are great and the tone of the book is presented well. So it's not all bad. What was bad though? Peter painted himself into the rocks. So stupid. Did you see that shit? It was like the Sistine Chapel on his body. He had like two magic markers to work with and he somehow replicated the entire rock structure around him. I think there was a little waterfall trickling down his stomach coming out of his penis. There's a little bird's nest on the side of his cheek. One of the eggs hatches. The mother bird flies past his forehead, cares for her young, carries them away. I'm getting a little off topic. Let's move on. Let's finish this. Are you, are you, running to the truth? I'm very happy they switched directors to Francis Lawrence, the guy behind I Am Legend. Another movie I'm not really that big on but at least the guy gets scale and he knows how to present it well. Francis ditches that messy shaky cam for a much cleaner presentation. The CGI is far better along with the action. You can actually see what's happening. Although the story doesn't really come to a neat close, it certainly has a beginning, middle and end with a great tease to the final installments. Catching Fire keeps the tension in the drama from the first, but also infuses some much needed comedy. Then there's the unique battlefield which makes for some very interesting moments with flesh eating gas, lightning storms and a very cool clock counter. It's also the only Hunger Games movie to give me a bit of a Harry Potter vibe and that's a very good thing. I don't know why I just did this, like I'm a president or something. Kind of reminded me of Hunger Games. That's a very good thing. There's kids running around killing each other. I think that you'll enjoy it. It's fun for the whole family because it's PG-13. So, kids killing kids, not a big deal. Hunger Games movies aren't great in my mind. In fact, I don't think people will be talking about them 10 years from now. It had a rough start, a solid middle and a disappointing conclusion. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the franchise. Perhaps you loved it and I'm just way off the mark. It's possible. It has happened before. Hit me up with a comment below and remember, there's more than just reviews. This is Movie Feuds. For a brief second in Mockingjay part two, I thought Katniss was gonna bust out with another song. I am so glad we dodged that arrow.