The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good movie but grossly overrated

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second installment in the Hunger Games series following Kaniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark after they spark a rebellion when winning the hunger games. These events lead Panem's leader President Snow to gather the victors from previous games to be drawn and entered into a whole new arena where they must fight till the death a second time. Catching Fire is a chilling thrill ride with more twists and suspense as the movie introduces new characters, a rising rebellion, and a whole new plan to take down Panem and their twisted games. Catching Fire may be the best of the films as it takes you deeper into this dystopian society reminding everyone to remember who the enemy is."People are looking to you, Katniss. You've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it." -Gale Hawthorne, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

This is "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" the biggest box office success from the year 2013 (five years old next year) and the second of four films from the Hunger Games franchise. Even if it did not get in at the Oscars for anybody, it managed a pretty decent deal of awards attention, including a Golden Globe nomination for the British band Coldplay. The director is Francis Lawrence, a prolific and successful music video director, and he returned for films 3 and 4 as well. The script is by Oscar-winning writers from "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Slumdog Millionaire". But for these names, the screenplay is quite a disappointment. I must say I have not read the books here or seen Battle Royale that many compare it to, but as a creative achievement the movie comes incredibly short. While running for incredibly long as this film almost makes it to the 2.5-hour mark. And in the center of it all is young American actress Jennifer Lawrence, who reprises her role as Katniss Everdeen. I must say I enjoyed the first film a lot, but I still felt that her casting was a gigantic error that kept the franchise from becoming something special. Then again, I do not like Lawrence in anything really I have seen her in and this certainly also includes her Oscar-winning performance. Incredibly overrated actress and the world finally starts beginning to see. She is a poor man's Renée Zellweger at best and Zellweger herself is pretty limited too.Back to this film here, the good thing is that Lawrence does not show one face expression as usual, but maybe 2 or 3 which is still not very much for a 2.5 hour film. But as bad as she may be, the script is even worse. Subtlety is a complete stranger to the writers here and the argument that the world the characters live in lacks subtlety altogether is not a valid explanation. It is fun though how the film tries to be as shocking as possible with one demonstrator being shot in the head early on, but the curtail closes right before we see it, so they can still get these 13-year-olds into theaters. Besides that, there is not much to the characters in here. Talented actors like Harrelson, Tucci, PSH (rip) and Edgerton are pretty much wasted because they would take away too much attention from miss Lawrence. One third into the film, the writers apparently realized that they had no more material/ideas to elaborate convincingly on the aftermath of the first film anymore, so what do they do? That's right! lets just have another Hunger Games edition right now. Who cares if this turns into a repetitive uncreative version of the first film then. And that's what it does. Apart from the fact that the rest of the film looked a lot like an episode of Survival Island with some (not so) special Sci-Fi effects added to it. It's basically nothing here but showing us how courageous, headstrong, yet vulnerable Lawrence's character it while the actress does not have 10% of the talent to make it look credible.Finally, the last shot with Lawrence looking straight into the camera makes obvious that there will be a third film because the ending is on a cliffhanger and Lawrence and Lawrence would return for another installment. This is really disappointing, but what can you expect and can you really blame them if millions of people head to cinemas despite the abysmal quality at times in this film. There is nothing refreshing or new in here and attention to detail or even love for movies and cinema is something I did not see in here at all. The occasionally entertaining moments of the supporting cast (especially the once again unrecognizable Tucci) just cannot make up for all the lengths and everything that is wrong with this film. I very much recommend you not to watch it.

I watched the first one. And it was a disappointment. There are quite a few movies with the exact same story. And all I have seen are better than the Hunger Games. But I was told this is a revolutionary concept. So maybe the second one will show the revolution. Nope.The production team was very professional. The main actress has the best face in her life. And, as prosthetic, it looks quite fake. I mean anywhere the light is placed in the scene, the highlights on her plastic face look the same. Still, it shows well on the film posters. The costumes and backgrounds were very creative. They needed a new world look, after Harry Potter and Star Wars and Star Trek and hundreds of others. And they have it. Only I find them terribly ugly. I don't know. Maybe they were supposed to be ugly to make the clothing in the districts look nice. Weird.And that is about all. There is no revolution. The story probably follows the books. And the author just shows the privileged rich life spent so far. So the result is some sort of revolutionary Kens disobeying dictator Barbie.The districts are poorer and poorer as the number increases. Yet people are all equally fit. The hunger games has people that are fat by any dictatorship standard.I also disliked the use of token people that ended up enhancing the racism of the story. Sure, the blacks are the most poor. But not as poor as the star winners. In the end the poor whites are more miserable than the blacks. Than the districts seem to be racially divided. Than you get some black person in the crowd, yet probably the black person was neutered or something because nowhere outside the capital is there any race mixing.What is worse is the revolutionary book about a revolution is teaching teens to be sheep. One can be close and unguarded next to the dictatorial figure and. And do nothing. Show some mild contempt. One can be on live TV and shout in equal measure useless and hysterical slogans. And they all go to their killing just like that. But they scare the system with a gesture. Anyway, the revolution is less in this movie than on the evening news.Bottom line: a script that has more holes than Swiss cheese that teaches obedience and passivity. Even the Disney movies don't reach that low with the indoctrination.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

You'd expect a merry-go-round in the sky, almost, the way people are on about Katniss Everdeen. I won the full set in a competition where mine was the winning review, thank you Raru South Africa, I do appreciate, I never would have seen it otherwise, the original box cover artwork of THE HUNGER GAMES reminded me too much of images I have seen of computer- animated Lara Croft and I didn't have this on my list of DVDs to obtain, but when my BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER review took first prize, I was real chuffed for the nifty boxset.Once again though, there's nothing really, really special in here. Come on, people, it's an average performance in a movie coming in well below what it should have been. I hasten to add, in all fairness, that those computer-generated mandrills... Ooh jeepers they made excellent excellent adversaries, the only real high point of the movie. Had the entire flick been that kind of edge-of-your-seat stuff...But Jennifer Lawrence is nothing extra-special in this movie. Do not get me wrong, I am not dissing her, no. But worthy of all this acclaim, for this... This? People, you are seeing way more in this than there actually is. Take another look at it. What it does do, is deliver a theme of televised blood sport, and this is what enthralls you lot. There is bound to be more. Of this (the DIVERGENT series aside) with better performances, and you'll see, though I most likely wouldn't, I prefer other kinds of story lines, I wouldn't be salivating over the blood games to follow.Notice that the poster artwork got recognition. Yeah, where are the days of the great poster artwork, like THE GAUNTLET, and the Roger Moore James Bond movies?In closing, I repeat, I do not mean it is a weak movie/weak performance. It is just, this is the first movie since THE EXORCIST where a movie with an actress headlining the show tops the box office. For this? Weren't there so many, many others so far, far more worthy?