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Quite a few reviewers seem to be taken by the historicity of this movie. It's true that many of the details are correct - but it is also true that many others are wildly incorrect. The most egregious one is the romantic liaison between Justice Jackson and his assistant. I guess that the producers introduced the romantic element for the sake of a wider appeal, but the fact is that, in light of the actual events, this looks ridiculous. Which is a shame, for the movie would have been far more valuable without that silliness. It's mostly because of this that I don't think that it deserves more than 5 points. The bright sides are Brian Cox's and Michael Ironside's performances, and also, but to a lesser extent, Christopher Plummer's and Matt Craven's. Alec Baldwin delivers the same kind of underwhelming performance that he usually does, and Jill Hennessy does whatever she can with her inane and fictitious part.

In summary, it could have been a good movie, but it is just a decent one.

I am assessing this as a standalone movie. As such, it is clearly unfinished and underdeveloped. It's not that we are left with a foretaste of things to come; we are literally left in the middle of it. If this were the pilot episode of a new series then I would be giving it very high marks, for it looks promising. As a standalone movie, the end is utterly underwhelming and intolerable. Other than this, the notion of parallel universes where the people are the same, but their personal circumstances are wildly different, depending on each universe, is just not believable. In universes that have evolved even slightly differently, and continued to do so for some time, individuals in one universe would most likely not be present in the other. Still, it's an interesting concept, and this has the potential for a good, entertaining TV series. As a movie? I don't think so.

Let me qualify my summary: It's not any worse than the movie that launched this series, period. Trapped in a plane in an intercontinental flight, the choice was THG:M1 or movies I had already watched. So I selected it. I had not seen THG, but I had heard good things about it. I was not expecting a life- changing experience, but something entertaining. Boy, was I wrong. This movie is a life-changing experience, in all the wrong ways. Not only was it unable to relieve the intense boredom of a long haul flight - it made it worse. This movie has not plot, makes no sense, is ridiculous from beginning to end. There is no saving grace to it, not even Miss Lawrence, who seems to be lost in the movie herself. As for actors like P.S. Hoffman, J. Moore and D. Sutherland, one wonders why they acquiesced to get involved in this brainless trash - I doubt they need the money (albeit you never know.) In order to make sure that it was not the lack of knowledge of previous films in the series that was spoiling the experience for me, I made a point of watching them, even if cursorily. I watched the first one, and that was enough. The Hunger Games is the most ridiculously hyped and overrated series of movies ever. Addressed to teenage public, this series seems to assume that teenagers are collectively brainless and stupid. This series is an insult to intelligence and discrimination.