Monday, September 25, 2017

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013, PG-13)

(The usual Buster Monday post is being saved for later in the week; we have another 100 Years of Buster Keaton anniversary coming up!)

Even though it certainly still has its flaws, watching Catching Fire was like a sigh of relief for me after The Hunger Games.  As I said in my Hunger Games review, it’s improved for me on rewatch, but I still find Catching Fire a much more exciting, watchable film that, for me, is a lot more successful at what it sets out to do (premise spoilers for this film, as well as some from The Hunger Games.)

After the events of The Hunger Games, Katniss is back home struggling with how to move forward.  Her bold move in the Arena is fanning sparks of rebellion in a number of districts, and on the eve of her shared “victory tour” with Peeta – with whom she has to continue the ruse to the Capitol that they’re madly in love – the president personally lets her know that the lives of everyone she loves will be on the line if she can’t do her job as Capitol puppet and pacify the masses.  Amid the rumblings of dissent across the country, the important 75th Hunger Games is announced with a very distinctive hook.  All the tributes will be reaped from each district’s surviving victors, and District 12 doesn’t have victors to spare:  Katniss (and either Peeta or Haymitch) will be sent back in.

A lot of the nuts-and-bolts problems I have with The Hunger Games are smoothed over here.  Francis Lawrence’s direction feels a lot tighter and more suspenseful to me, and both the score and the costumes are used to better effect.  Serious stuff goes down in this movie, and the film definitely knows that, an impression I don’t always get in The Hunger Games.  And overall, I’m fairly pleased with the screenplay.  This book covers a lot of ground, and while there are of course wonderful lines, gems of scenes, and perfect character moments that didn’t make the cut (there always are,) I think the film mostly does a good job hitting what’s important in a way that doesn’t feel choppy or rushed.  If I’m going to find nits to pick, I’ll single out the foreshadowing on District 13, which is too skimpy for me.  It also would’ve been nice to work in at least a little bit about Haymitch’s Games, and I’d have liked a bit more with Finnick, just ‘cause I love him as a character.

The new cast members, for my money, all hold their own pretty well.  I especially like Jeffrey Wright, who’s pitch-perfect as Beetee, Lynn Cohen in her understated but affecting role as Mags, and Jena Malone’s fierce turn as Johanna.  Additionally, Amanda Plummer hits the right offbeat notes as Wiress, and while Sam Claflin doesn’t completely sell me on Finnick as a shallow Capitol playboy, he handles Finnick’s greater complexities in the Arena really nicely.  And I know she was in the previous film, too, but Elizabeth Banks’s performance as Effie in this movie made me realize what a gem the franchise has in her.  This is a series that has a lot of great actors all-around, but I think Banks’s Effie might be their secret MVP.

Warnings

Lots of violence, thematic elements, brief implied nudity, alcohol, and language.

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