Review: ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’

Here we go, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” another installment of the movie franchise du jour, based on yet another worldwide bestselling book series, this time not about boy wizards or ring lords or vampires but instead about an oppressive governmental machine and the young woman who unwittingly becomes the inspiration for uprisings and riots among the poor masses against the Capitol. 

While the first “Hunger Games” movie took a lot of flack for being a bit of a johnny-come-lately to the movies-about-kids-forced-to-kill-each-other party, the sequel has the benefit of being able to get away from comparisons to other movies by finally being about to embrace its own thing, which in this case is the current class warfare between the rich and poor across Panem and the fallout of the historic ending to the previous Hunger Games event. For those who don’t know, this “game” is put on once a year, and two teenage kids from each of the poor districts are sent to this game to fight to the death. 24 kids enter, 1 kid leaves, and that kid’s district gets a bunch of food (hence the hunger part).

You really need to know what happens in the first movie to even understand what’s going on in this one. There is a lot of visual and verbal shorthand to events that happened previously, and character arcs that were started in the first movie but didn’t go very deep are developed more. There is a lot of relying on what came before, as well as a lot of obvious groundwork being laid down for future movies based on the rest of the series. This doesn’t so much feel like a movie as it does a chapter in a book – it starts mid action and it ends mid action. Sure there’s a sense of the drama increasing and characters sort of changing from the start of the film to the end of it, but much like the movie before it, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” doesn’t so much end as it just stops. Would it kill these people to make movies that have SOME sense of closure to them, even if they are setting up something bigger?

Again this movie is a showcase for Jennifer Lawrence, who kills it once more as Katniss Everdeen, the girl who got involved in this whole mess only because she wanted to spare her younger sister from having to be participate in the games herself, and who now finds herself as the face of the new rebellion whether she likes it or not (the answer is not). And this time we are shown a little more of the world outside of the games, like how the government is oppressing the people and sets out to beat them down and keep them down, all the while using the media to help control the public’s perception of Katniss. Ironically, there feels like there is more danger in the first 30-40 minutes of this movie than in the entirety of the previous film. There’s a palpable dread hanging over everything, especially as the new games come closer and Katniss finds she has to go through the whole ordeal all over again.

I don’t know what else to say about this movie at this time so here are some quick notes and then we’re outta here:

• Elizabeth Banks is very good again as Effie Trinket, and actually has a scene or two in which she gets to appear human.
• Philip Seymour Hoffman = great as always.
• Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Haymitch Abernathy, Effie Trinket, Plutarch Heavensbee, Cinna, Finnick…are you fucking kidding me with these names or what?
• The action this time around is not nearly as shaky or indecipherable like in the first movie, and actually has a number of very beautifully composed shots and sequences. Francis Lawrence is pretty good, gotta say.
• Mandrills don’t eat humans and why would they be afraid of the beach and water? If you’ve seen this movie already you know what I’m talking about.
• I was pretty certain at one point early on that one of Donald Sutherland’s eyeballs was just gonna POP out of his head mid-sentence.
• I still don’t get why one of the 12 poor districts has to be an all-black district. And I’m pretty sure there was a cotton field in there somewhere, no kidding. Going a little far, “Hunger Games,” going a little far there.
• What the hell is a mockingjay?
• I still don’t understand why the masses need Katniss as inspiration to start the rebellion. They should just rebel already. What else do they have to lose? Their lives? Their horrible shitty lives, living among the sick and poor and dying and being one of them because the system is set up against you?
• Stanley Tucci is great, but he’s no Richard Dawson.
• The next “Hunger Games” book is actually being split into two movies, so any hopes the next one would have an actual ending went right out the window. Get ready for another anti-climactic action followed by a cliffhanger.