probably my favorite of all the films

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2015)

Francis Lawrence was somehow the best (or just a right) choice for this installment of the Hunger Games series - and it seems like he did a good enough job that the producers gave him the two parter of Mockingjay - and yet it is easy to see from I am Legend. Not a flawless film, but it showed a director who knew how to put someone we care about as an audience almost inherently (Will Smith, Jennifer Lawrence) in harms way of some really f***ed up scenarios. What's different from that film to this one is that the source material isn't changed around to fit something else, it's just kept to what the book was and how strong the story and action set pieces got underway. In other words, it's loaded with superbly staged action, characters that get fleshed out more than before (both heroes and villains and one that may be in-between), and the politics of it is striking. Yes, for a blockbuster like this it can get political.
Catching Fire picks up a little while after the first Hunger Games ends when Katniss and Peeta won the game (yep, both of them, one of those last-minute things/twists but it worked). What sets this off well is a scene early one where Katniss is called in to the office of President Snow (Sutherland). It's still one of those scenes you remember well from this series, where it's all about intimidation, where Snow doesn't ask but tells Katniss she must act a certain way with Peeta on camera to "convince" the romantic angle, or there will be consequences (the way Sutherland responds to Katniss' "I'll convince him" with "No, convince *me*" is as sinister as acting can get). So the first part is watching Katniss and Peeta having to still put on a front of things to the world watching the winners, but also seeing how absolutely awful things are for people in the districts. And yet it doesn't seem that far off from something that could be seen in the real world: say, a badly-off urban area, or a militarized city, surrounded in fear and intimidation (except when there's rebellion, in some small and big gestures).
All through this first part Lawrence is still acting in ways thats more about responding to people with looks, or downplaying what could be bigger emotions from any other actress. This works since she needs to save the BIG stuff once the story takes the major turn (though not something people will see as unpredictable due to the nature of sequels): there's an ANNIVERSARY hunger games planned, and it involves the past winners in a drawing... so Katniss is back in! It's from here that we get a sort of Hunger Games part TWO in the sense of seeing the games all over again and of course the thought is how they can do what they did in the first film better or different. What's surprising is if there was any thought that Lawrence couldn't direct this to top Gary Ross - it certainly wasn't difficult from a filmmaking stand-point.
By this I mean that unlike the first movie, which was really an R-rated action movie edited down to PG-13 in a matter of how the cuts were jagged and unsettling (and not in any effective way), Catching Fire delivers really shocking action beats and moments of brutality, but nothing seems like it is cut or shot in a way that is disorientating or shot in a way that is 'off'. Lawrence gets these actors from one place to the next and yet finds time for people to sit down and have good talk. There's also the trap that could be easily fallen in to in a translation of this material, which is much smarter and sharper than the average YA lit of today but has the potential to slip into s***, but Lawrence and Hutcherson work really well off one another this time, and the additions of actors like Jena Malone and Jeffrey Wright take things up a notch: you believe these people more as people than should almost be conceivable for a genre piece.
The other great addition here is Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He plays Plutarch, a new game-maker chief (ok, not the most subtle name, but then how about Peeta or Snow). Like Sutherland he relishes in under-playing things at times, just delivering a look says enough than having to say extra things, but at the same time his presence as this guy who seems TOO smart in some ways, how he talks up things to Snow, makes him the most welcome addition in the film. It's actors like him and the others brought over from the first movie that sets this apart from other movies.
There's high velocity thrills and kills, and you get some crazy special effects and even (yes) monsters (I still remember leeches at one point being a major threat in a mud pool or something). But it all comes back to the characters and the stakes in the time-frame for them, and most of all about the IMAGE that's presented. There's satire here, not really buried but on the contrary fully present and out there. In a way its obviousness is part of why it's kind of brilliant (if not like all-time great or anything, it's still got some sappy moments and a cliffhanger that is both devastating and kind of over the top); you know it's right here in society, but it's taken to another level in a way that takes from other science fiction stories in a fresh way.