A Powerful Adaptation Of The Second Book

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2013)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a powerful adaptation of the second book in The Hunger Games Trilogy. Director Francis Lawrence has successfully taken the franchise and built from the first film's foundations. This was a smart choice as the characters, world and themes of the story are now more fleshed out and most importantly- easier to see (no shaky cam).
Picking up almost a year after the first film, Catching Fire finds Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, no relation to the director) still reeling from her time in the arena during the previous years' Hunger Games- a scare tactic to keep the people of "Panem" quiet and grateful to their oppressors as they watch 24 of their children go into a televised fight to the death. Katniss and Peeta (Hutcherson) are the first double winners of the games thanks to their "true love". Now both of them find themselves thrown back in to the arena as the evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) declares that the reaping of the tributes will be selected from previous winners of the games.
Jennifer Lawrence gives an intense, heartbreaking and invigorating performance as the reluctant heroine Katniss. She really seems to grasp the pain and terror Katniss goes through throughout the film. Katniss is not a girl of many words but when you have an actress who can convey genuine emotion without speaking- it doesn't matter.
As Peeta, Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right, Epic) has grown from the baby faced baker's boy to a steadfast calm in an ongoing storm, keeping Katniss tethered to sanity. Liam Hemsworth still has minimal screen time as the lovesick and angry Gale, but he also represents the inner turmoil of an oppressed society that has had enough.
Elizabeth Banks is stunning to watch as the overdressed and chipper Capitol escort Effie Trinket. Her outfits scream Capitol City Coutour, and she smiles with mad ignorance at the pain and oppression happening in Panem. Yet her face, when Katniss and Peeta are again called to be in the arena, shows a woman torn between her friends and her lifestyle. Jenna Malone gives a memorable turn as the troubled tribute Joanna. She is a controlled manic bringing electricity to every scene she steals. Joanna is a character only an actress as devoted and creative as Malone could pull off so magnificently.
Sutherland's power obsessed President Snow is again given much more screen time than page time in the books. This is a smart move for the film. Snow represents the evil of The Capitol without the thrill and glamor of it. He is a man desperately holding on to a system that is bound to fall apart. Sutherland revels in the role and brings his own special brand of creepiness to it. In one scene Katniss and Snow converse across a desk that seems to be the only thing between them killing one another with their bare hands. The tension is high and that is the beauty of two highly skilled actors playing off one another.
The film leans a little too heavily on the romance between Gale and Katniss. In the books Katniss indeed cares for Peeta and Gale, but she doesn't really have time or heart for romantic love. She is seen showing affection to Gale and this betrays her character. It does the book and it's message a disservice by hyping up a love triangle that certainly exists but is secondary to the story.
Gone is the shaky cam from the first film, though it maintains its moody dark blue and grey color scheme. Shot in Hawaii, the Arena is almost exactly as pictured in the book and all the horrors they face keep you on the edge of your seat until the heart pounding finale. Catching Fire is in no means a feel good film. There is very little comic relief as the stakes get higher and higher and the people of Panem get angrier and angrier. All while the citizens of the glittering Capitol City watch the blood shed and horrific chaos from their comfy seats in their temperature controlled theaters, wearing their colorful clothes and eating their endless supply of junk food seems a little familiar doesn't it? - Christina Kishpaugh www.mediumraretv.org