Excellent sequel and a book adaptation

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2014)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire continues the story of the first book/movie with blazing abandon, consistent character development and increasing stages. It's a film worthy of its predecessor, and it very well might be even better.
Jennifer Lawrence is the unquestioned star of these movies. Katniss Everdeen is the central focus of the story, and I love it. Her struggles, vulnerabilities, victories and defeats are the driving force behind the plot and how the audience reacts to it. And the best part is that Lawrence completely submerges herself into the role, easily switching tracks whenever needed. Katniss as a character is very closed off, very guarded, which carries the risk that an actress playing her would seem stilted or wooden, but not with Lawrence. You can see the subtle emotions playing across her face at any given time, and the final scene where she stares directly at the camera and you can see dozen emotions running across her face one at a time. Shudders, man, goosebumps even.
Not to say the rest of the cast is untalented either. Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutlerland are as great as ever as Haymitch and President Snow, respectively. Josh Hutcherson as Peeta was actually better in this one, in my opinion. More bitter, which gave him depth. I'm still not completely sold on Liam Hemsworth as Gale, but he did his job. Too much of an obvious tragic bad boy, I think. And the rest of the actors did equally good jobs, managing to convey a lot of exposition and storytelling with relatively little screen time and with a lot of grace.
The special effects and the visuals were very good. Larger budget obviously meant improvement in these areas, and it shows. And thankfully they toned down the shaky cam, which improved the viewing experience so much. It's also a well directed film. The storytelling is smooth and flawless. A complex and multilayered story is laid out in front of us in a way that feels natural and is easy to follow. At no point did I felt that they skipped over anything or that the film lingered too much. It was a well-paced, well-told story with a proper, might I even call it perfect arc. The closest one to perfection I've seen in recent years.
If I had to nitpick I'd say that when we get back to the actual Hunger Games, the novelty has worn off. The arena is still exciting and at least it's different enough that it feels somewhat new, but the actual mechanics of young kids and adults fighting against one another are nothing we haven't seen before. It's still good and it's still enjoyable to watch as an action piece, but oh man, what if this arena had been the arena in the first film. That would have been unbelievable. Still, a nitpick at most, so don't turn away from the movie because of that.
I liked this film. The ending left me wanting for more and I can't wait for the next one. This is what a sequel should be about. Continuation of the story, more character growth, new characters in moderation, doing what the first film did right, learning from the mistakes of the earlier films. The whole package. If you liked the first Hunger Games, you're going to love this one.