The Hunger Games: Em Chamas

Director Francis Lawrence's film runs nearly two-and-a-half hours but it concludes so abruptly and tantalizingly, it leaves you wanting more.

The budget is nearly twice the original, and it shows. Great work from the A-list cast, amazing set designs and costumes.

The one truly fresh invention-and the one that matters most-is Katniss herself. With each on-screen chapter, the poor girl from District 12 continues to fulfill her destiny as an inspiration and a rebel fighter.

This second in the Hunger Games trilogy, directed by Francis Lawrence, has many of the virtues and somewhat fewer defects as its predecessor.

Catching Fire delivers on the grim, roiling promises of the original.

Gary Ross did the hype justice by kicking off the series with a highly effective adaptation and now Francis Lawrence builds upon that success by taking the budget boost and funneling it into top talent, stunning visuals and an all-consuming experience.

The movies (gratefully) violently counteract any attempt we might make to see them as fun escapism.

It's mainstream entertainment, but it succeeds at being riveting and deeply unsettling mainstream entertainment that casts a critical light on our current systems.

Vivid, visceral filmmaking, twisty and entertaining, with startlingly good turns by Jennifer Lawrence and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

This is Empire Strikes Back stuff. It has that second Star Wars movie's kick of confidence.

This follow-up to the 2012 hit based on Suzanne Collins' novel, represents commendable storytelling that ought to please the book's many fans

Now the violence is not merely physical, but existential. Far from having won her freedom as promised, Katniss is now imprisoned in a false public narrative-supporter of the Capitol, lover of Peeta-from which she may never escape.

Given the strength of this installment, I'd say the box-office odds continue to be, in that Hunger Games catchphrase, "ever in its favor."

Though some of the chases and escapes are thrillingly filmed, this last section of the film feels indistinguishable from plenty of other video-game-style avoid-the-obstacle action climaxes.

The grand climax, whose elements include a long piece of wire, a lightning bolt, and an electronic force field, is an incoherent, rapid blur that will send the audience scurrying back to the book to find out what's supposed to be going on.

None of it would work -- not the action, the adventure, the political subtext or the humor -- without the strength and beauty that Ms. Lawrence brings to the central role.

Though the romantic triangle provides the story's heart, it's the film's take on media as social control (Stanley Tucci returns as the unctuous TV host), sharp sense of action, and smart peformances that give Catching Fire its soul.

The ingredients are in place for a potent finale, but "Catching Fire" is watered down.

Everything that felt clumsy in The Hunger Games has been improved upon here.

Catching Fire is best in its first hour, when it concentrates on the politics and the specific horrors of Panem. It becomes more conventional in the second half and loses steam, but it's always heading somewhere.