Review: Catching Fire

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second installment of the The Hunger Games film series, was released to high acclaim and is sure to make a sizeable dent in the box office over the coming weeks. Catching Fire had a lot to live up to, and so the pressure was most definitely on for new director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend). Thankfully this film does not disappoint… for the most part.

Following on directly from the end of the first film, Catching Fire’s opening third is centered on Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) as they tour the other eleven districts to celebrate their victory at the 74th annual Hunger Games. However, the influence of their success scares President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who still likes to bore people by talking about hope, and so it is decided that, for this year’s Hunger Games, all the tributes will be reaped from the batch of surviving winners. Unlike The Hunger Games, however, the start of the film is Catching Fire’s strongest act and it is where almost all the character development occurs. What is meant to be the most exciting fan-service- the actual game- is honestly quite boring. The initial fight is more exciting than the first film as the tributes are older, stronger and better trained than before and so the action, while less controversial, does feel more dangerous. Unfortunately, this is as fun as the film ever gets as almost all the remaining action sequences are devoid of a human threat; instead we have evil weather, evil animals and evil water to watch out for.

Catching Fire (unfortunately) isn’t about people killing each other as much as the first was; the film, when it comes down to it, is political. Everything that happens in and out of the games is monitored and manipulated by the government, something that really isn’t much fun to watch for nearly two and a half hours. The film retains our interest by following the rules of a sequel. Everything is bigger: the film is more violent, more funny (even though many of the jokes awkwardly fail) and has more romance.

It’s hard to compare the two films. They feel so different, almost as if they weren’t connected. The Hunger Games was scary and provocative; it showed fifteen year olds killing each other on television. Catching Fire shows a bunch of adults complaining for a while and then not killing each other. The tributes from districts other than twelve are far more fleshed out, something the original was missing, and the scenes with them and J-Law are some of the best in the film despite the shaky acting.

Catching Fire is fun, and some will definitely think it surpasses the original, even though the game itself somehow doesn’t feel quite as threatening. The grievances expressed here are minor; the film was good, albeit a little silly, and leaves the bar high for the next two films.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keT5CRhhy84

Images courtesy of screencrush.com, flavorwire.com and flickeringmyth.com