With teen fiction books being a new market for Hollywood to pillage for profit, it was always going to be a case of quantity over quality. 2012's The Hunger Games however, was a pleasant surprise by being rather good, offering far edgier fare than expected.

Hopes were relatively high then for its sequel. It doesn't take long into Catching Fire before there's a sudden realisation that hope can die all too quickly, particularly where this film is concerned.

Having survived and won the 74th Hunger Games, life should be swell for Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). It isn't. The people of Panem are still suffering, and Katniss and Peeta find themselves brought back into the spotlight again a year later, to help promote the 75th games. They're still having to pretend to be a couple, which certainly makes things awkward between Katniss and her real boyfriend. Well, it would, wouldn't it?

The relationship between Katniss and President Snow (Donald Sutherland) hasn't become any less frosty either. Snow still dislikes Katniss and sees her as figure of hope for the suffering people of Panem, which of course, won't do at all.

With a new games-maker on the block, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Snow wants to make a real statement with the next games. Between the pair they cook up a real doozie; as it's the Third Quarter Quell, they will present a very special games, where previous winners will get the great 'honour' to be picked to participate once again. And as the only ever female winner from District 12, the participation of Katniss in proceedings is, sadly for her, a foregone conclusion.

Before you can say "predictable plot point" Katniss and Peeta once again find themselves fighting for their lives.

So please stand and pay your final respects to our goldfish leaders, Streaky and Bob.

There a number of films that take a while to get into the swing of their story, but Catching Fire takes the proverbial biscuit. An hour in and very little happens. New director Francis Lawrence takes his sweet time in developing the story on screen. There's a lot of serious pouting against an unsettled political backdrop which ultimately results in very little.

And eventually the game itself begins. It's a challenge for any director to put a new twist on the concept; after all, the most exciting element of the first film was the game itself, with its hunt or be hunted premise. Laurence attempts to mix things up by squeezing an episode of Lost into the centre of the film; the biggest threat for the combatants isn't each other, but the arena they're playing in. Just like Lost, the arena is island-like, with the elements and its inhabitants proving to be the most prominent danger. Sadly, it just doesn't work, with very little shape and too much nonsense to take it seriously.

And then...the film ends. Literally as it just starts to warm up, after two and three quarter hours in, it stops in its tracks, in a tragically timed cliff-hanger. And to add insult to injury, as if you haven't suffered enough, Chris Martin starts crooning over the end credits.

It transpires that what Lawrence has actually made is akin to a teaser trailer of nearly three hours in length for the final instalment to come in the trilogy. It's a woeful example of time management, offering nothing vaguely entertaining or original during its entire duration.

It just feels all the more worse after all the good work that was done in the first film. Catching Fire, ironically enough, doesn't come close to doing that, offering not even a single spark of entertainment.

Another troubling thought is that not only the third instalment, Mockingjay – surprise, surprise – split into two parts, but Lawrence is also down to direct both. And Katniss and Peeta thought they had it bad.

As far as these games are concerned, there's a good chance, on this evidence, that you could lose your appetite entirely for the series. A totally tasteless disappointment.