Catching Fire has managed an incredible score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes (putting it up there with Gravity, Captain Phillips and Nebraska), with the critics uproarious about the job Francis Lawrence's has done with the sequel.

Hunger Games posterThe Hunger Games: Catching Fire Poster

"Jennifer Lawrence, of course, is the real draw. Female role models come and go, and Lawrence's Katniss is one of the better ones," said Village Voice's Stephanie Zacharek. 

"Like Katniss ducking a poison-tip arrow, the keepers of Suzanne Collins's trilogy  of fantasy novels have dodged the perils of the sloppy second franchise film," said Cath Clarke of Time Out.

"Francis Lawrence imbues the source material with visceral pleasure in well-wrought scenes vacillating between elaborate spectacle, breathtaking terror, and - occasionally - surprising beauty," Richard Larson of Slant Magazine enthuses. 

"(Francis Lawrence) adds some important new pieces to that group and expands the world in a way that doesn't throw out Ross's film, but that uses it as a way to get to something even better," says HitFix's Drew McWeeny.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire hits theaters worldwide on November 22, 2013. Check out all our pictures from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire premiere.

Watch the trailer for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: