The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Movie Review By Edward Koss One year ago the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games was a breakout hit that made some impressive box numbers for an early spring release. The success of the book series and promotions helped made the movie a phenomenon worldwide. The film also introduced to the world Jennifer Lawrence playing the protagonist Katniss Everdeen that made her a superstar overnight. Her popularity and talent throughout last year grew with two other movies she was in House at the End of the Street and Silver Linings Playbook. Her performance of playing a widowed wife in Silver Linings Playbook won her an Academy Award, and she is only 23 years old. With all of the hype surrounding The Hunger Games it exceeded expectations. It was a cleverly written story, with an amusing cast of characters, and solid performances that made it captivating. The way how it was directed, shot, and edited made it an eerie sense of “Big Brother” is watching you with the hand held camera approach. Designing District 12 with an overcast atmosphere that made it understood that this part of Panem’s social class is on the poverty level. Then once we approach the Capital it is exploded with color and richness. The gray background also paints the picture of how these people are ruled by a dictator that has control over the districts of Panem to sacrifice two children from each district to fight to the death until only one victor remains to represent hope, but it is only used to keep the people of Panem contained with fear to not overthrow the Capital. Katniss Everdeen throughout the games becomes the beacon of hope that starts to root a rebellion against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and bring his corrupt politics down. That is what her character in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has to do is to make a choice if she wants to be the hope of the last remaining districts of Panem, or fall into the trappings of President Snow and let him continue to do his puppet work by killing people that try to start a protest. A new game designer of the Hunger Games (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is working with President Snow to destroy Katniss’s image of hope and have the people of Panem start to hate her and want her dead. The two evil masterminds force a Quarter Quell Hunger Games tournament where every winner from each district fight in this tournament. Katniss is also battling with posttraumatic stress from participating in the 74th Hunger Games. She is also fighting to live a normal life with being with Gale (Liam Hemsworth), but is also living a double life by living in a love fantasy with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) just for the cameras that is adding extra stress into her life. The sequel got a new director Francis Lawrence. He made the film darker than the original by adding more grit in putting the heroes in bigger challenges that made it an the edge of your seat science fiction thriller. The futuristic science fiction visual style to the film is much better. With his direction of making the sequel darker he orchestrated the actors to play their parts with emotions that made you believe in the stakes that these characters are in and care about them. The performance by Jennifer Lawrence is electrifyingly strong from her introduction to the very last shot of her. Katniss is more vulnerable in this chapter, but she also shows her strength in the midst of her vulnerabilities, and that is what continues her heroism. Watching Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Woody Harrelson acting together is such a delight to see. They all have believable chemistry that comes off the screen and never loses focus when they are all on screen together. The newcomer characters are a mixture of appropriate and annoying. That is one of the minor flaws the movie has. The same goes with some of the supporting cast of characters that were in the first film that I thought overplayed their performances, and those two actors are Stanley Tucci (Caesar) and Elizabeth Banks (Effie Trinket). The two newcomers that make a grand entrance is Finnick Odair (Sam Catlin) and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone). The love triangle is the biggest flaw in the movie because it is underdeveloped. It is redeemed a little bit because of how well the onscreen chemistry works when either Jennifer Lawrence is with Liam Hemsworth and with Josh Hutcherson. However, Peeta and Katniss are more exciting to watch when they are together rather than Katniss is with Gale, but the case for that is because their characters have more screen time and so we get to know them more than what we get out of Gale and Katniss when they are together. Perhaps when Mockingjay Part 2 is finished maybe the love triangle in this film will not be a problem. On a large scale the movie works as a great commentary on standing up for what you see is wrong that someone is bullying people on how to live. It is also showing how the media influences how we view entertainment. It is exposing how much the media pulls so much fabricated people and relationships that some people forget what is real and what is an illusion. It is a remarkable middle chapter of The Hunger Games saga that is more darker, still cleverly written, it has better visual effects that helped make the science fiction aspect of the film is better, and above all the characters are amusing to watch. I give The Hunger Games: Catching Fire a B+.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 04:54:39 +0000
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