The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The first Hunger games was pretty uninteresting to me. I love Battle Royale. Yes I'm one of those. I thought there was a lot to respect in the first film, but too many problems for me to really be interested in what's going on. Why was it that she spent so much time fighting for sponsors, but then only received help from Haymitch? Why was it that the death of of a child sparked a revolution, when surely these people had seen the death of MANY children before this one? If the government was so concerned with perception of hope and revolution, why would they broadcast so much footage that could spark a revolution? Why on earth was it that they were pretty much okay with potentially all of the kids being killed by dogs, but terrified at the idea of them killing themselves? This wasn't nearly as good as Battle Royale, a film I'm sorry to say I compared it to rather harshly.

So, again, having not read the books, I didn't really care to think about what this was going to be about. There is no way for another Hunger Games film to be interesting without another Hunger Games. How could they possibly force that? What would possibly put Katniss into that situation again? Could a generic revolution plot really carry the rest of this series? I doubt it. What could possibly salvage this series?

Well while I felt the story was a bit forced and maybe a bit nonsensical (I get that she's a good archer, but DAMN that final shot was absurd...), I have to admit that I certainly found this film far more enjoyable than the first. I found characters much more believable, motivations more focused, and far less plot holes that wore it down. I loved the diversity of the tributes. Instead of being a group of people who all looked diverse but perhaps not believably random (each of them happened to have an incredibly useful skill), now we saw a group of people who all also had skills, but not as obviously useful as the past tributes. It works. Jennifer Lawrence is as good as she ever is, completely embracing the character with obvious adoration and respect.

Generally speaking, I found the camera to be less shaky, which in this case was appreciated. The first film tried to jump in and out of a first person look, a style that didn't work for me. But here, it felt more balanced, enough to actually put me into the story but not enough that it was distracting or headache inducing. The effects were less obviously CGI, which was obviously a very welcome improvement, with only one or two grating moments.

I still have to say that The Hunger Games isn't as impressive of a film as Battle Royale. But this film gave me hope for the final two to be interesting and good. At the very very least, it's a better sequel than Battle Royale's sequel...

Rank - 4.5/5