The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Get ready to bleak it up once again as some teenagers are forced to commit mass murder!

This time, however, the two surviving teenagers from the first movie have to mass murder a bunch of experienced mass murderers instead.

Isn't the "young adult" genre fun?

Catching Fire picks up almost immediately after the end of the first Hunger Games film and spends very little time rehashing or recapping - if you've forgotten something or are inexplicably starting the series at the second film, you're likely to be extremely lost extremely quickly.



To quickly recap the first movie - the country is split up into 12 districts with a capital - ingeniously called The Capitol - running the whole show. Apparently there was some sort of uprising about 75 years ago and now the Capitol hosts a  gruesome reality show called the Hunger Games, which is basically a cross between Battle Royale and a gladiator fight designed to placate the general population.

"We made a bunch of kids murder each other and now the general population is mad at us?
Peasants are so weird, right? I just don't understand them."

However, the contestants are all children conscripted from the 12 poor, working-class districts. Shockingly, this is causing some civil unrest.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) are the first ever joint winners of the Hunger Games, and are being driven around the country as part of their victory tour. Further shocking news that parading the victors of the last competition, especially when said victors were defiant and uncooperative, does not inspire great loyalty in the rest of the populace.

"We're brutally beating anybody who doesn't look like they're having fun.
Why are these peasants so mad all the time? It's so weird" 

The stakes are raised when President Snow personally visits Katniss and threatens her to be good and stop stirring up trouble or he'll get her and her little dog too.

And when that doesn't appear to work, the Capitol just decides to host Hunger Games: All Stars, which consists of the winners of previous games.

But only the popular ones get to be on the poster.

For what it's worth, I actually like the series, but it takes a long time to get to the action.

In hindsight, Catching Fire seems to be almost a beat-for-beat remake of the first film. There's the introduction to District 12, some scenes on the train, some scenes in the Captial, a scene with a chariot and questionable fashion choices, some training and then BAM! melee with 24 people.

Look at that woman! She FILED HER TEETH so she can BITE OUT YOUR NECK.
You know how much neck biting was in this film, though? NONE. *sigh*

This film does expand on the world, but it doesn't seem like enough to really pull ahead as its own movie.

When the actual games do start, there's little to no mention of the other competitors who aren't in the core group ''alliance,'' and those competitors end up mostly getting killed off screen. It's a little disappointing.

Instead there are a lot of scenes with dresses. And a guy with purple hair.
Arguably, the guy with purple hair is always excellent, but there are a LOT of dresses.

Jennifer Lawrence is great as Katniss, who is basically suffering from PTSD, and Jenna Malone is a stand out as a "take no shit" candidate from a rival district.

Jenna Malone fed her dress to her axe. Citation needed.

There's a lot of social and economic commentary that's about as subtle as an arrow to the face.

What? No. Stop that.

The arena of the actual games was fantastic and I would have enjoyed seeing more. One scene featuring poison fog had me on the edge of my seat and gritting my teeth, but it was over quite quickly.

Also, monkeys.

Unfortunately the end reminded me too much of The Matrix: Reloaded, which is something I like to avoid at all costs, so it loses cred.

Jennifer Lawrence hates being reminded of The Matrix: Reloaded as well.

Part three looks like it will finally get out of the "games" mindset and start finally exploring the world and some more of the repercussions of civil war.

"Here's to a happy country. I hear everybody is so happy with our brutal dictatorship."

Three stars.

But seriously, there are a lot of dresses.