The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Happy U.S. Thanksgiving weekend. I have been in California enjoying the holiday with family so I’m just now posting some thoughts on “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” movie, which I saw last Monday after its opening weekend took in $158 million at the box office. It beat out the first Hunger Games movie in sales and is continuing to haul in more over Thanksgiving break.

I found it similarly as good as the first movie and it follows the novel quite closely. “Catching Fire” finds Katniss and Peeta on a Victory Tour of the 12 districts after their win in the 74th Hunger Games. But all is not well as rebellion against the tyrannical Capitol is in the air and Katniss turns into a symbol for the cause. President Snow retaliates by making many of the former victors return to the arena for the next Games. And soon, Katniss and Peeta are back there fighting for their lives once again.

The sets, costumes and special effects make it an eye-catching spectacle in a post-apocalyptic world. And the expanded cast is entertaining, too, seeing which actor will turn up as what character in the movie. It’s a large, diverse cast with everyone from Stanley Tucci to Amanda Plummer to Jeffrey Wright and Donald Sutherland to even Philip Seymour Hoffman this time around. They’re all fun to watch, as well as the returning cast, notably Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson who are the main protagonists.

“Catching Fire” takes some time positioning itself at the movie’s beginning. I think people who haven’t read Suzanne Collins’s trilogy might find the movie quite slow in parts especially at the start, or they might be confused about particular parts of the movie. It’s more enjoyable I think to have read the books before seeing either of the movies to get the full experience, though it’s not a complex story like “Game of Thrones” or anything. But it’s good to remember such things as who Seneca Crane was. You might recall he was the head gamemaker of the 74th Hunger Games who ultimately is put to death for allowing there to be two victors (Peeta and Katniss) from the same district. His circumstances come up again in this movie.

“Catching Fire” does get suspenseful as the Capitol starts cracking down on the districts and Katniss threatens to run away and especially once the next Hunger Games starts. You might flinch a few times when they’re making their way through the forest, and since you know the ending can’t be as fortunate to have two victors as in the original.

But one segment of the book I was sorry they left out in the movie is when Katniss comes across two runaways from District 8 in her woods at home in District 12. They tell her there’s reason to believe that District 13 was not wiped out as they were always lead to believe but is still populated, how so they don’t know. The mystery surrounding District 13 and its hoped for part in the underground rebellion, which is quite interesting in the book, is not much touched on till the very end of the movie, which is too bad. That’s one example of why books that are made into films are usually so much better. The movie misses a bit of the mystery, as well as the thoughts that are explored in the book’s first-person narrative.

Still “Catching Fire” is an entertaining adaptation of the book to the big screen. It’s dark, it’s brutal and still there’s the love triangle between Katniss and Gale and Katniss and Peeta that’s not all figured out. At the end you’ll want to know more about what will happen to all of them, but you’ll need to hang on till November 2014 when “Mockingjay Part 1” comes out. So till then Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Now what did you think of the movie?