Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Plot: Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) get sent back to the Hunger Games after getting double-crossed by President Snow, who thought Katniss was becoming a political symbol. Katniss and the other tributes are more angry at the government for putting them in the games than they are at each other. In the games she forms an alliance to fight off adversaries. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Hunger Games: Catching Fire is genre-crossing movie with action, romance and politics all co-existing. The first novel & movie played with killing for mass entertainment. This movie plays with politics manipulating people through entertainment.

Catching Fire's Politics was not as clever as the media satire from the first movie, so Catching Fire is not as strong as the first Hunger Games. On the other hand, the plot has been streamlined from the book, and I found it easier to understand. 

In Catching Fire, Katniss grows up from a lucky victim to a heroine herself. The moral dimension gets heavy-handed; and as heavy handed as the politics were in the movie -- it was worse in the book.

The fact that people were dying and our young heroes were killing them is taken more seriously in Catching Fire, and this leads to the revolutionary sentiment. 

I loved the art direction in Hunger Games, and this continued the same theme, and the darker tone of Catching Fire makes the silly clothes seem more silly. I liked the elaborate food, the bohemia reference and the TV production sets.  Stanley Tucci should get his own sequel playing the announcer. I continue to love Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and her clever costumes. Poor Lenny Kravitz is wasted though. 

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks

Directed by: Francis Lawrence; based on the book by Suzanne Collins

Art direction by: John Collins, Adam Davis, Robert Fechtman

Rating: 2.5 stars: I am a Hunger Games fan. A satire about reality shows where the contestants really kill each other is a great idea. Here in the second movie, the concept wears thin, and the contestants turn their hatred toward the government. At its best Catching Fire, satirizes how entertainment media can manipulate people, but sometimes the political aspect of the movie seems forced -- like an excuse for the action/romance part of the film. 

More: Hopefully Catching Fire was a necessary step to set up a great 3rd movie. 

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