Film: Hunger Games All-Nighter @ The Prince Charles Cinema

I'd not seen any of The Hunger Games films figuring at some point the PCC would show them all back-to-back. Also I don't like the way Hollywood seems to think a trilogy can be turned into 4 movies clearly to get 33% extra money from those committed to seeing them all. Notice how it's always the final film they split into two, never the first. Now I wait for all the films to come out and then watch them like this.

The first film sets the story of The Hunger Games, an annual celebration of a public uprising where a girl and boy are randomly selected from each of 12 districts, to take part in an contest where one person has to outlive the others in order to win. After her younger sister is picked, Hunter Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place. Will she win? Of course she will, there are three other films.

In the second film Katniss finds herself back in the games when the organisers decide to celebrate games number 75 by bringing previous winners back. Her popularity starts to stir a rebellion in the people which the game organisers, and rulers of the city are keen to suppress hence the rules change. This was the most enjoyable of the four for me, with a great arena with little nods to Lost.

In the third one the rebellion starts to grow and there aren't any games this time around. Instead Katniss discovers District 13, rumoured to have been destroyed in the uprising but is actually still around and building a force to take over the capital. Can Katniss help convince the other districts to join in the revolution? This one was the weakest of the four. It was quite obvious at this point that Katniss had run out of make-up; she was much more normal looking than the earlier two films.

In the final one the revolution runs in earnest and as Katniss and her group storm the city they find it closed down and turned into the next Hunger Games arena? Will they make it to the ruler's house and kill him? Well, I won't spoil that. This finale was alright but did suffer a lot from relying on "running from things" too much; something that blights a lot of action films.

So overall, I'm glad I saw them like this and the films were quite enjoyable but Battle Royale, a similar story with a Japanese comic book twist, is so much better.