Karl Marx For Teens In The Third Millennium, part II

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2013)

Better than the first one.
I saw this film back-to-back with the first installment at a preview screening. That probably saved Catching Fire from getting another 6/10 from me because in direct comparison to the first Hunger Games, this is a step up.
Again the delivery of the story is flawless. The visuals are even better than the first. The actors have grown into their characters and give rock solid performances. The stale old gender roles we're used to from the 1900's are still nowhere to be found. The perils are more horrible and tangible. The thrills get louder screams from the audience (trust me... my ears rang). And the whole thing is grittier, dirtier and without the sickeningly sweet saccharine from the first film.
Story-wise the gloves come off. The People In Absolute Power recognize the Kick-ass Underdog Hero for the trouble catalyst she is and want to rein her in to restore the status quo. The Filthy Rich need their bread and circuses from The Dirt Poor, The People In Absolute Power are hell-bent on giving it to them, and no little waif from some no-name coal mining town is going to stop that... got it, waif?
Yeah... she gets it. She promises to play along and makes a valiant effort to do so. Needless to say it falls apart just as quick as you can say "paper thin facade".
The class struggle is on for real now. After seventy five years(!) the worker class begins revolting against the upper class. The next chapter of Karl Marx's theories of the uprising of the proletariat gets under way. The Hunger Games series continues faithfully as a 2010's version of Das Kapital & The Communist Manifesto For Teens.
The upper class fights to hold on. To kill off the troublemakers cleanly the protagonists are once more put into gladiator fights to duke it out to the bitter end. This time around the arena of death has been ramped up to eleven. Instead of just a couple of point-and-click perils, they now come on the hour, every hour. And again The People In Absolute Power screw around with the rules just to keep the poor sods in the games from gaining the upper hand.
What saves this film and makes it more enjoyable - even for a non-target-demographic old geezer like me - is that it doesn't spend over an hour establishing the premise. It's already there, which lets you forget about it and just get sucked into the nail-biting action. It works wonders and by the time of this act's finale, I'm on board in a way the first film didn't succeed with.
And the thing that makes this film step up truly from its predecessor is that people finally start reacting like human beings. The participants of the games recognize them for the perversity they are and openly show it. The people in The Capitol start hinting they want the games stopped. Even the shameless bimbo - that has been looking past the cruelty of it all in order to drown out the cries of the oppressed with food and wine - starts to show cracks in her make-up. In Hunger Games I was annoyed about the premise that everyone somehow managed to box up their emotions for three quarters of a century and just take it like door mats. In Catching Fire, they are doing just that: catching fire. That is good and makes this film more watchable.
Who should see this film? If you saw the first one and enjoyed it, or at least tolerated it, then this one is a given for you. And the cliffhanger glare of determination will probably have you coming back for Mockingjay - Part 1 and 2.