Last weekend, one of the most anticipated movies of the year was released: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the movie adaption of the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Having read the book series and enjoying the second book the most, I was very expectant that the movie would be a solid film. My expectations were not disappointed.
Onto the review. WARNING: Partial spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.
Catching Fire pretty much starts off where The Hunger Games ended, where after the games Katniss and Peeta live in the victor’s village of district 12, preparing for their victory tour. What I like about this film is how there is more of an impending sense of danger and a heightened threat of rebellion. This is because what Katniss and Peeta did to win the games angered the president of the capitol, President Snow. As a result, everyone Katniss loves is threatened, so she and Peeta must act as if what they did was really because they were in love with each other. Not only that, but you can clearly see the mental toll the games had on Katniss, which just makes this movie all the more poignant when they have to go back into the area.
Perhaps it is because of the change in directors, but the pacing of this film was considerably better, not to mention the fact that it followed the book quite accurately only leaving out a few parts. Good pacing and script writing lets the background characters who didn’t get much spotlight in the hunger games to be developed on more here, such as Gale and his love for Katniss, and Primrose, Katniss’ sister. Even the primary antagonist, President Snow, is developed a bit more, and the scenes he appears in always add some background into the film.
The acting in this movie was exceptional. You’re pretty much invested in the movie emotionally all the way through because the actors playing their parts are so immersed in their role that you can clearly see the effort they put into their character. Newcomer Jena Malone as fierce and feisty Johanna Mason acts exactly like I imagined she would in the book, and I especially loved her for the comedic parts she was in. Even Sam Claflin as Finnick Odair, Lynn Cohen as Mags and Jeffrey Wright as Beetee acted out their parts quite well and were very close to how I imagined them.
I felt that the developing love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale was really well portrayed by the actors. You could see and sense the romantic tension between the three of them, especially when Gale is whipped by a peacekeeper and Katniss watches over his recovery. At first I wasn’t sure the Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson were a good match as Katniss and Peeta in the movie, but they outdid themselves this time. They really became the characters and showed exactly what their movie counterparts were feeling over the course of the movie. Jennifer Lawrence has now become the iconic face for Katniss Everdeen, and she’s amazing at being her.
The setting of the movie is amazingly accurate and goes along with the descriptions of the book. I especially loved the arena for the 75th Hunger Games because it’s exactly how I pictured it, and is really well made.
The cliff-hanger ending the movie leaves the viewers with was perfect, even though in the book it was dropped more like a bomb (see what I did there, Hunger Games readers) eagerly waiting for the next movie.
For all its good points, I find very little fault with this movie. My only peeve is the fact that I feel like Katniss as a character bothers me a little with her indecisiveness between Gale and Peeta, because she clearly was affecting the both of them with the way she was acting. I don’t mean that the love triangle was bad, though, I was just irritated a little by the fact that because Katniss doesn’t really know who she really loves, she hurts both Gale and Peeta in the process.
Overall this movie gets a 5 out of 5 because of its amazing acting, plot, character development and everything in general. The final film of the trilogy, Mockingjay, is set to be released in two parts like Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows and Breaking Dawn were. Mockingjay part 1 is set to be released next year in November, with the final part releasing a year after.
