An example of what a blockbuster should be.

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2013)

As the lights dimmed and I relaxed in my seat, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire began with a long shot of its heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), crouching on a rock in the wintery forest. This silhouette of Katniss in the center of the screen melts your eyes with its bleak poetry and allowed me to set aside my prejudgments about this sequel based on a best- selling teen novel series. This single shot sets the tone, expectation, and the precedent of beautiful cinematography that lay ahead.
The original film is more of a served as a solid teen film, I sustained a moderate anticipation for the sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I was not prepared for the gusto the director, Francis Lawrence, was going to deliver. Lawrence thankfully replaced Gary Ross, the director of original film.
District Twelve Tributes Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have won the Hunger Games by feigning the world of their undying love. Their victory against the Capitol has resulted in the beginning stages of a rebellion amongst the citizens. The leader of Capitol, President Snow, orders Katniss and Peeta both justify their actions in "cheating the system" by proving their love to be legitimate. For the 75th Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta are thrown back into the Game, facing off against previous winners as their opponents.
Catching Fire digs deeper into the themes dug by the original including totalitarianism, reality TV metaphorically killing our youth, and the false implications that are intertwined with a celebrity image. They own what they are looking to explore and do not compromise insightful art for gushy romance and violent action.
The love that Katniss and Peeta find in the sea of false feelings and acting may be the most honest thing the series has to say. It's not love at first sight. The irony is Katniss and Peeta are forced to display a celebrity image of love. What the audience expects from their relationship is an immediate external attraction, but they find love in seeing the other person underneath, a lesson of life and love we learn as we mature.
Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence produces her best acting performance to date in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. She has the strength to carry Katniss and her newfound psychological traumas while owning her role as leader. What Sigourney Weaver accomplished in Aliens is similar to what Lawrence displays in Catching Fire, she's given the opportunity to vamp up the pathological expressions of a damaged woman after establishing her character in the original film.
Post-traumatic stress is a favorite concept of mine to explore with female characters in sequels. Lawrence both reveals and hides that vulnerable side of Katniss, behind the shield of her stubbornness and aggression. Lawrence succeeds where Kristen Stewart failed in leading the Twilight series. Like the original film, Katniss has a specific feminist character arc she must fulfill; Lawrence subtly tracks that arc in each scene and turning another beautiful acting job. Though I think the pop culture immensely overreacted to Lawrence in the past two years, she has the mark of a great actress, one that will be a gem her generation.
I am crazy about the sinisterly beautiful cinematography and the emotional film score of Catching Fire. The sets are ravishingly decorated, the costumes are bombastic, and the make- up pays attention to smalls details. Catching Fire has the occasional missteps, though they are thin and widely dispersed.
A problem from the original film that is rectified in this sequel is that the first 80 minutes have a story to tell and don't read like a directions manual to a board game. The Hunger Games as a series grew up a great deal in the small time frame between the first and second films. Catching Fire is not a teen film, it may have been written to be, but the film emerges as a permissible addition to great science fiction adventures in cinema.
Will we look back and think that Catching Fire changed the world? Is it important art? No, but it's the most entertaining film of the year and the blockbuster that stands tall amongst a sea of misfires.
Rating: 8
Grade: A