The Hunger Games:

Catching Fire (12A)

Dir: Francis Lawrence

With: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth

Runtime: 146 minutes

WHILE many a mighty beast has stomped through cinema over the years - King Kong, Godzilla, Russell Crowe's ego - none can compare in box office terms to The Franchise. From Star Wars and Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings and Twilight, the franchise has kept studio balance sheets in the pink and highly tickled. Assemble the right formula, and the franchise can make Willy Wonka's golden ticket look like second prize.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, part two in the series, confirms that Suzanne Collins's best-selling creation has the right stuff to be another book to movie smash. Though ridiculously long at just under two and a half hours, Catching Fire finds the tale of a dystopian America of haves and have nots heating up nicely. By the time of the next instalments (as with Harry Potter and Twilight, the finale is in two parts, the better to keep the tills ringing for longer), oven gloves might be required to handle the tickets.

The main reason behind its success can be spied in the opening scene of Francis Lawrence's future set thriller. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, no relation) is back in her beloved forest, safe after her victory in the first Hunger Games (2012). She is not, however, the teenager she used to be. On her shoulders is a weight of guilt and in her mind is a catalogue of terrifying flashbacks to the fight to the death she has just survived. As if to ram home the point that this teenager is now a war veteran of sorts, Katniss is seen lost in a thousand yard stare.

A meeting with the country's leader, President Snow (a brilliantly chilly Donald Sutherland), snaps her out of the reverie. The president is not happy. There are murmurings of rebellion in the Districts, the enslaved regions that keep the citizens of The Capitol in the vulgar style to which they have become accustomed. Katniss, whose own rebellion in the Games started the murmurings, must be seen to toe the Capitol's line, so she and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), are forced to go on a victory tour.

So the old team assembles. Another reason why the Hunger Games clicks with young and older audiences alike is the cast of strong supporting characters. They underpinned Collins's novels and do the same job in the films,with familiar faces and characters signalling to audiences that they are in for entertaining business as usual. Hence we say hello again to Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), Katniss and Peeta's drink-sodden but whip smart mentor, and Effie the PR (Elizabeth Banks in ever more insane couture). Also returning is the host with the most Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), and to keep things fresh there are new faces, including Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch Heavensbee, the scheming impresario in charge of the Games.

As Katniss and Peeta travel through the country it is clear that all is not well in the state of Panem, the new name for what used to be America. The Capitol therefore schemes up another idea - if the bread and circuses of the Games have worked in the past in keeping the populace subdued then they will work again, only this time they will be bigger and more horrifying.

This element of danger is the franchise's third pillar of strength. The first film was criticised by some for showing youngsters fighting each other. The second part involves older participants, and is therefore not quite as shocking, but, to Lawrence's credit, no punches are pulled in any sense. Life in Panem is shown as what it is - nasty and brutal. Like ancient Rome or pre-revolutionary France transferred to the future, this is a realm of masters and servants, where the poor starve and the rich take emetics the better to continue gorging on fancies. The contrast is so stark, so outrageous, that younger audiences have no difficulty identifying the bad guys and the heroes.

Make that heroine. As played by the ever more impressive Lawrence, Katniss Everdeen is a feminist heroine for the age. Smart, self-sufficient, brave, and principled, she is Jane Eyre with a bow and arrow, Germaine Greer with added grrr. Well, up to a point. As in the first instalment, Catching Fire finds her still up to her neck in the mushy sub-plot of having two suitors and not being able to choose between them.

What most fans of the franchise have come to see is crash bang wallop action, and Catching Fire supplies plenty in the way of thrills. The trouble is that by the time the action gets under way in earnest we are more than half way through the film. At that point one feels in need of a nap and a protein shake but onwards and upwards the movie must go. Fortunately, Lawrence finds enough of a second wind to propel the picture towards an exhilarating end.

Everything ends as it should in a franchise gearing up for a grand finale, with the action and characters primed and ready for more. Will the concluding parts work as well? May the odds be ever in its favour.