Not All That Enticing

Rating: 4/10 (2 February 2017)

Somebody suggested that the best way of becoming a successful author was to write a dystopian novel where a group of teenagers rise up and overthrow the established order. I guess that had something to do with a number of similar series of books taking the young adult market by storm, and this was one of them. I guess that is something that appeals to the teenage mind, being able to stand up against and challenge the adult world – it's something that teenagers, ever since the teenager was invented as a marketing concept, have aspired to. I also guess it is what has been fueling the growing animosity across the generation gap, especially with the baby boomers against the millennials, and with us Gen-Xers caught in the middle.
Anyway, Catching Fire continues on from where Hunger Games left off, and I have to admit that like the first movie, this one wasn't all that inspiring. Katnis and peter are living in the Victor's Village in sector 12 and basically have everything that they want provided for them. However, they suddenly discover that as victors they still have jobs to do, and that involves traveling across all of the districts to promote the next Hunger Games. The problem is that Katnis' actions in the previous season has sparked off riots across a number of the districts, riots that Capitol is attempting to contain, through the use of force of course. The other thing is what to do with Katnis, because she has become a symbol for this rebellion, but they can't kill her because that would turn her into a martyr. So, they decide to throw another round of Hunger Games, but this one is a special one because it is the 75th anniversary since the first (of course), so this one has all the previous victors (or at least 24 of them) all sign up again, and as it turned out, each of the sectors, ironically, had two people win two of the last twenty four games.
This made me roll my eyes, namely because it turns out that this is basically the first film all over again, except that Katnis and Peter have just gone on to the next level. Okay, they weren't supposed to have special games, which has sort of upset a number of the victors, but they decide to go ahead with it anyway. Then there is this whole thing with Peter – are they in love or aren't they because it comes out that Katnis is basically ignoring him unless they are on camera, and when they are on camera they are all lovey dovey and pretending to be this couple for everybody to admire.
The funny thing is that these style of movies do tend to have the younger generation fighting the older generation – the older generation are tyrants and killjoys that are basically ruining it for all the younger people, and if the younger people where in charge then everything would be much better. I guess that is why older people tend to be conservative and younger people tend to be progressive – the older you become the more stuck in your way you tend to become. Actually, it is the younger people that tend to be the full on radical socialists who don't want to work and basically have the state provide everything for them – or simply want to get into politics to get a bit of the pie.
Okay, I'm not really sure whether this film is supposed to be political, but I can see the ideas behind it, and I guess it is stories like this that sort of build these ideas in the minds of the teenagers that they should rise up and overthrow the established order. Honestly, I'm a progressive myself, but what we have here are stories making the younger generation believe that they know better than people that have been around for a much longer and have made mistakes that they have learnt from. Mind you, I'm not necessarily suggesting that we stagnate, but the thing is that instead of instilling the young with these ideas that they should go out and overthrow the establishment, rather they should have older heroes that are much more circumspect in challenging the dystopian present. Mind you, that concept probably wouldn't appeal to the young adult market.
Oh, and as for the ending, well, once again it was pretty ordinary, and sort of came somewhat abruptly. Actually, they tried to do a cliff hanger, which I felt was really annoying, because it didn't seem to resolve anything, and Katnis' actions at the end actually made no sense whatsoever. Oh, and having all these people turn out to be rebels, and that there was an underground rebellion all along, it was just that they couldn't tell Katnis because, well, she couldn't keep a secret, and was too emotional, really made me roll my eyes. Anyway, it didn't stop me from going ahead and watching the next film in the series.