Review: Catching Fire

by William Hill
★★★½

From the ashes of the Twilight...thing (I refuse to call it a saga), comes The Hunger Games trilogy, the latest young adult fiction sensation which has been compared to Battle Royale, Lord of the Flies, and other subject matter far darker than the young adult label is purported to cover. I read the first volume of the trilogy when I got my Nook last year, since the freebie option was either this, or the aforementioned cheap anti-erotica novel, I opted for the book where teenagers kill each other. Considering the Stephanie Meyers blurb on the back cover, my blood was good and frosty when I opened the glorified HTML file that was siting in solitary on my new eReader, I was surprised to find the story of a strong young woman sticking it to a society of hedonists, while trying to survive a free-for-all battle before getting into a love triangle of what in the buggering hell is this nonsense?

Hardly indicative of the themes of nature of the film.

For those of you who are reading this and still questioning why people are into The Hunger Games franchise, allow me to assuage certain fears. No, this isn't about a love starved idiot who pines for two men while a far greater conflict gets shoved into the background. In fact, the entire love triangle thing was shoved into the first book/film. I'll wrap up my discussion of the first film by saying that it was a well told story with fine performances from most of the cast, and some of the most nauseating photography ever designed to conceal brutal violence. I was thrilled to hear that Gary Ross wasn't returning to shoot the follow-up, and that they were leaving the broken tripod back in the equipment truck. So how does the second act of Suzanne Collin's trilogy translate to film?

Well, I didn't get around to reading this book yet, so there will be no nitpicking.

Catching Fire picks up less than a year after the events of the first film, and Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is still trying to recover from the grim happenings at the previous year's Hunger Games. Her relationship with Thor's brother, Gale (Liam Hemsworth) is a little bit icy after her claiming her love to Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), and rebellion is on the air. Do you see how long it took me to get to the rebellion part? Well, thankfully they dialed this back quite a bit for the sequel, and it doesn't take long before Katniss and Peeta are off to tour the districts and talk about their victory, and watch people get killed, riots break out, and how their actions in the games are spreading hope among the downtrodden people of the other districts. This doesn't sit well with President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who aims to use the popularity of Ms. Everdeen to silence the cries of revolution. What follows is a thrilling look at how people unite under symbols, and how the media is used to mask the dark world events happening right under our noses. It's smart stuff, however given the nature of the series popularity, I wonder if any of the concepts being introduced in the film are being noticed by the audience it is selling to. The score stirs and stings accordingly, and is decent enough to warrant mentioning. I'd like to have heard the mockingjay call used a melodic cue, but I didn't notice such touches of leitmotif upon my first viewing.

He just wouldn't stop asking them to play the music from Tron: Legacy...

Before I get philosophical, I have to celebrate how well Francis Lawrence has improved on what was done in the first film. The photography is far more competent, and doesn't shy away from the violence by quickly moving it from side to side. Sure, it's not packing Battle Royale levels of blood and gore, but it does a far better job of keeping the worst stuff from PG eyes. The visuals are usually impressive, though some of the CGI is less than attractive. When the Quarter Quell kicks off, and the action picks up, there is a scene with monkeys...it isn't as bad as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it's definitely not a pretty sight compared to the bloom-lit beauty of glossy trains, 1% society, and some glorious landscapes. Extravagant costume design in the Capitol scenes continues to stand out, with some truly eye-catching scenes that are designed to remind us of the gap in the social strata, but still draw attention to the visual design of the film in a great way.

Catching Fire does give the world another reason to say how genuinely talented Jennifer Lawrence really is. While this isn't the meatiest content that she's dealt with (see Winter's Bone, and do it soon), she carries herself through every scene with aplomb. It's easy to relate to her troubles, be it the PTSD behaviors she delivers early in the film, or the stark middle-finger-raising rebelliousness which defines her character in the previous film, as well as the late second act of Catching Fire, she excels as Katniss. Supporting this luminary are decent performances from Hemsworth and Hutcherson. However, Woody Harrelson is still a lot of fun as Woody Harrelson, tumbling through the film as a brilliant raging alcoholic. Donald Sutherland is a fantastic villain, remaining intimidating throughout the film, providing a great specter to hover in the atmosphere.

Ummm...what?

I can't help but call the audience out in regards to the tonal content of the film. Let's start with this little oddity; I work at a drug store, and about two months ago, we received a shipper from Cover Girl marked Catching Fire, and I was more than sickened to find "District Twelve Look" makeup inside. It's blatant mass marketing using a popular brand to sell eyeliner when the source material is starkly anti-commercial. Let's pick this apart: both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire clearly illustrated that there was a deep chasm in the social strata between the districts and the Capitol, where people are starving while they go to work in the mines, but the rich are living extravagant lives of sheer hedonism, where they consume vast amounts of food, and then drink a small beverage that makes them sick so that they can continue to eat. When the distributor breaks out the marketing machine that allows you to buy the look of people who are starving and mining for coal, you begin to wonder what people are actually drawing from this series. Let's take it to the character. Katniss is a strong, independent teenager who would sneak out of the city to hunt so she could better feed her family. She put her name in the drawings for the games several times over to get more bread. I was already irritated that she was pushed into a love triangle in the second act of the book because it didn't make any damned sense. She becomes the icon of rebellion among the poor and downtrodden, because she is rebellious. She doesn't conform to what is expected of her by President Snow and the people of the Capitol. So tell me, how does this films fandom deal with putting on colorful Hunger Games branded eyeliner when thinking of this character as rebellious and anti-conformist?

The short answer? They don't. Despite the best efforts of the books and the film, which both depict the social strata of Panem, the idea of peoples as symbols for rebellion, and that this strong young woman could fight and survive against all odds, the thing I heard most people reacting to while the movie was going was the damned love story. Cynics who are unsure of why people bother with the young adult love story, allow me to tell you that Catching Fire is a strong film, with bold statements to make about cult of personality, how the media projects people, and how those personalities can be illusions. Francis Lawrence has made up for the sins of The Hunger Games, and delivered one hell of a second act in Catching Fire. Check out the first one if you haven't, and go see Catching Fire. It's a great theatrical experience, and a movie that you'll discover is a lot more than it's marketing suggests.

Baby, it ain't over til it's over.

Let's see how Mockingjay translates from the oft panned book to film when it comes out next year. In two parts. Because that's how we do the last part of equally sized books when we adapt them these days.