THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
The world knew a newfound fandom would occur after adapting Suzanne Collins’ book series, The Hunger Games, into a series of motion pictures. Once the first film did well financially and critically, we were all craving for more, all of which delivered in their own way. However, I don’t think any of them pulled it off like so with Catching Fire.
PLOT
Based on the second novel of the series, the film takes place only six months after Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark survived the 74th annual fight to the death tournament by outsmarting the rules to avoid killing each other in sudden death. Ever since their victory, the majority of Panem believe their actions to be done out of love, which makes the two keep an act every time televised cameras are on them. However, President Coriolanus Snow believes their decision in the games to be done out of defiance as it since caused an uprising by the districts. Because of this, he demands Katniss to convince him in order to fully convince the public completely. She chooses to try since he caught her sharing a kiss with her childhood crush Gale Hawthorne, who is jealous of the kayfabe relationship. When she and Peeta go through a victory tour, they go unscripted with their eulogies for District 11, which only inadvertently elevates the uprising. When Katniss reveals to Peeta of her encounter with the president, their mentor Haymitch Abernathy insists to keep the act going by reading eulogies written by their chaperone Effie Trinket. With that not working for the remainder of the tour, Katniss settles on the idea of marrying Peeta to seal the charade. Despite having an engagement party at the Capitol, Snow is still not convinced. He gains the advice from the new head gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, to quell the uprising by tainting Katniss' public image. He starts by having his security dubbed 'Peacekeepers' to crack down District 12. The incident results in Gale being whipped by Head Peacekeeper Romulus Thread. When Katniss intervenes, Peeta and Haymitch stand by her side which only makes the rebellion stronger. Conveniently, Snow would announce the 75th annual games, but the third Quarter Quell, in which past live victors compete every 25 years. This is the perfect plan for him as Katniss is the only live female tribute from D12 and will have to compete out of default. And on the day of the Reaping, Peeta volunteers for Haymitch. When Katniss' family and Gale choose defiance by doing the same three finger salute that defies the Capitol, done before by D11 during the victory tour, she is unable to say goodbye to them. With her and Peeta having to train again, Haymitch suggests making allies to better their chances. The mentor insists leaning towards aligning with brute forces like the Careers, but Katniss prefers those who have valuable skills. During an individual assessment, she makes a puppet out of the likeness to the deceased Seneca Crane, as a warning to Heavensbee. When everyone has interviews the night before the Quarter Quell, stylist Cinna makes a wedding dress for Everdeen as ordered by Snow due the cancellation of their public wedding. However, he designs it to turn into the resemblance of a Mockingjay, inspired by her pin that represents defiance. Peeta pushes boundaries by saying(lying) he married Katniss in secret and she is pregnant with his baby, sparking the public to react and demand the games to be cancelled. All the tributes would even hold hands in solidarity before the televised feed is abruptly cut off. Despite a grand effort, the event will go on as planned. On the day of the games, Cinna would be killed in front of Katniss and she would be unable to cope with it as she would have to compete shortly after the incident. As she retrieves her signature bow and arrow from Cornucopia, she and Peeta would gain their first set of allies with D4 tributes Finnick Odair and Mags (Lynn Cohen). Within the first day, a total of 8 people are killed in the tropical forest themed arena: a D5 male tribute (James Logan), a D6 male (Justin Hux), both tributes of D8 (Woof Casino & Cecelia Sanchez), both tributes of D9 (Daniel Berndardt & Marian Green), a D10 female tribute (Tiffany Waxler) and Seeder of D11 (Maria Howell). Peeta almost dies of an electric force field, but is quickly resuscitated by Finnick. By night, they survive the wrath of violent mandrills, but Mags sacrifices herself from a poisonous fog so that Finnick can tend to Peeta. They do reach the beach again and make align with Johanna Mason of D7 and Beetee & Wiress (Amanda Plummer) of D3, the latter two Katniss was hoping to originally befriend. As that trio recovers a swarm of raining blood, the group deduces the arena is acting as a clock based on the previous shown traps. Knowing that they're catching onto the pattern, Plutarch makes the arena spin to keep them off guard. When they later get more supplies, Wiress gets killed by D1 Career Gloss Nicholo (Alan Ritchson). Katniss and Johanna retaliate by killing him and his sister, fellow D1 tribute Cashmere (Stephanie Leigh Schlund). Katniss and Finnick would then be drawn into the forest when hearing jabberjays mock the cries of their loved ones. For Everdeen, she hears the cries of Gale and her sister Primrose. But for Odair, he hears the cries of his girlfriend Annie Cresta. After going through an hour of emotional pain, Beetee comes up with the idea to electrocute the D2 Careers, Brutus & Enobaria (Bruno Gunn & Meta Golding), by electrocuting them with a wire he tends to connect to a tree that is struck by lightning twice a day. As she second day concludes, four more deaths are confirmed apart from the ones Katniss witnessed: a D5 female tribute (Ivette Li Sanchez) , a D6 female tribute (Megan Hayes), Blight of D7 (Bobby Jordan) and a D10 male tribute (Jackson Spidell). As the night gets closer to midnight, Johanna attacks Katniss with only the intent to remove her tracker, luring her away from the D2 Careers by smearing her with blood. (Brutus is able to kill D11 tribute Chaff Mitchell [E Roger Mitchell], only before he himself is killed by Peeta, all of which occurs offscreen.) When Katniss recovers, she finds Beetee unconscious due to getting electrocuted. She mistakes Finnick to have killed Peeta when another cannon goes off, but he reminds her he is not her enemy. She spares him and then decides to attach Beetee's wire to one of her arrows, shooting it into the roof of the arena. As the lightning strikes at midnight, conducting along the wire, the roof is destroyed. The lightning does knock out the Girl on Fire, but she would be picked up a hovercraft. As this happens, Snow intends to question Heavensbee, only to find him absent from the game room. When Katniss wakes up in the hovercraft, she does find Beetee still unconscious, but is confused to see Finnick conversing with Haymitch and Heavensbee, who reveals to have been on the side of rebellion all along. All three explain to her it was always the plan to break her out, half of the tributes were in on it because they were inspired by her to start a Revolution, and are heading to what was a once abandoned District 13. Then then share Peeta & Johanna have been captured by the Capitol. (The books confirm Enobaria was evacuated and let go due to her loyalty to the Capitol’s beliefs). This enrages the Girl on Fire because Haymitch promised to save him instead of her. She aggressively reacts by attacking him, causing Heavensbee to sedate her. When she wakes up again, she sees Gale instead. The film ends with him revealing D12 got destroyed by the Capitol, but was able to get her family out in time.
THOUGHTS
I remember reading this book and being stunned of it all, which makes me glad how incredibly accurate this film adaptation was, leaving me say ‘Oh my god’ by the time the credits roll. With respect to Gary Ross for setting us up, Director Francis Lawrence takes over here and elevates for the rest of the franchise. Everything that was done before, he antes it up which makes a bigger impact. James Newton Howard’s score raises more suspense than before, telling us to continue keeping the guard up. The combo of production/costume/makeup design and visual effects improve significantly as it all makes the atmosphere of this dystopia feel bigger than before. All of this also helps with each action sequence we’re able to get. The mandrills were creepy enough to keep me curious on how their sequence would turn out. The spin that occurs in the arena made me claustrophobic of seeing a cross country track. And now, I don’t want to leave my house if I see a fog again. And the transition of Katniss’ wedding dress become a mockingjay thanks to synthetic fire was beautiful. I identify this entry as the franchise’s absolute best for showing the value of trust because on a world where people will be selfish enough to use each other and use fear as their weapon, it is much a feeling difficult to earn. As long as you believe you’re giving it to those who deserve it, you’re on the right path. This is exactly what our leads protagonist is going through while still trying to figure herself out in a world she never could’ve prepared for. We love Jennifer Lawrence the most here because Katniss is forced into a pickle where she must continue being a fighter before going back to being a lover. The PTSD she expresses going back to the arena reminds us she will never proud of killing those who came close to killing her. And I think seeing her push through before things take another drastic change is is still inspiring because she is telling people to not ever give up on what you believe in. She believes in love and that made her strong enough to be defiant at every chance she had. And by the time she hears her home to be destroyed, she accepts who she is and is willing to continue fighting until she knows it’s over. On a side note, I got to give a shout-out to Willow Shields for displaying Prim’s gratefulness towards her sister, because she’s the reason this franchise exists. She showed it when tending to an injured Gale. Love makes us do crazy things, which is shown deeply when multiple people love you, hence this franchise's intense love triangle. We still got respect for Josh Hutcherson as Peeta because his heart of gold makes him a selfless guy. He has his own PTSD to worry about but where he differs from Katniss is that he's able to still be himself after all of it, never letting it consume him until his capture. Liam Hemsworth on the other hand is able to have us respect Gale as well because apart from his loyalty, he is someone who gains the courage to take a stand which he wouldn't have done without Katniss. Of course, he mostly does this out of love because he's known her his whole life. The problem is she never felt that way in return with him because she felt she never had the time to think about when focusing on taking care of her family. So at this point, every time she kissed him, it was out of pity whereas they were more genuine for Peeta. She's closer to Mellark because he shares the trauma with him, truly being the only one able to understand the terror that troubles her. And off of that, she only felt safe around him hence refusing to lose him. While it was a difficult journey for them to reunite in Mockingjay, it was definitely worth it by the end. Moving on, Woody Harrelson still has us appreciate Haymitch because he acts at his most protective towards Katniss, knowing exactly how important she is to the cause. He cares about her deeply because he knows she is able to define humanity better than anyone and without her, there is no cause. He couldn't tell her the plan because her love for Peeta would not allow her to go along with it and wasn't gonna bare knowing she would lose him. The way of thinking was worth it because now, he has her to take part in the absolute. I’m sure a lot of people were annoyed of Effie the first time around because she doesn’t seem to connect with the tributes, which is logical because it wouldn’t feel right to befriend one when you know they’re being sent to die. Because Katniss & Peeta survived the first time around, Elizabeth Banks has her approach them with more humanity because she respects their will and knows they don’t deserve to go through another batch of hell. Since she was a chaperone, she started to feel responsible the way Haymitch was as a mentor and this change is where you gotta respect her too. Off of that, you can’t help being glad she’s on the side of the rebellion as shown in Mockingjay. I still love Lenny Kravitz for having Cinna remaining passionate with his work and a caring friend to Katniss when most needed. Sadly, it is his heart that cost him his life. It’s so hard to see his death because Katniss couldn’t avenge him the way she quickly would with the others she cared about. Thankfully, Mockingjay showed us it wasn’t in vain. Going into the new characters, it gets more satisfying to see more people be on Katniss’s side because they knew their society had to change. Plutarch Heavensbee was my absolute favorite here because Philip Seymour Hoffman succeeds in making him the most deceptive. He tells Snow what he wants to hear, pleasing him in the process, only to give his own defiance by freeing Katniss, proving that free will is a must for Panem or there will never be the unity Snow fantasizes. Sam Claflin succeeds in having Finnick fit into the mold because he’s not as self absorbed as past tributes and has someone to fight for. Off of the latter, he believes in what Katniss stands for. Jena Malone was a delight of her own for making Johanna accurately the boldest. She’s the most aggressive to the cause because she doesn’t hide how she feels and fights fire with fire through her attitude. She wants to be left alone in peace the way Katniss does, but is upfront about it, hence being on her side the whole time. Jeffrey Wright was another great addition to the cast because he nails it in portraying Beetee as the smartest of characters for being the most observant. He knew the only way out was to destroy the arena and he figured it out the longer he analyzed the dome. I’m sure he didn’t plan on getting electrocuted, but it paved the way for Katniss to make a break for it in epic fashion. And on the bright side, he continued to be a helping hand for the rebellion as shown in Mockingjay. Since every franchise will always have a fair share of protagonists, you have to expect a villain that gives a reason for them to exist. You already feel disgusted on actor Stanley Tucci making talk show host Caesar Flickerman express more visibility of his loyalty than before with the propaganda. And you’re already getting chills when Patrick St. Esprit played the relentless Thread, but neither are gonna top the impact their leader makes as a grand protagonist. Donald Sutherland still has us intimidated with Snow because he acts at his most manipulative and refuses to have people act above him. It drives him mad that his granddaughter looks up to Katniss instead of him and for that, he will do whatever he sees as absolute necessary to assure there is order to his society. Luckily for us, he is realizing his end is beginning. My love for this movie will never fade away, but it ain't gonna excuse some issues I caught onto upon re watching. For example, why was the door open in the Peacekeepers' surveillance room if it wasn't so sensitive to be seen. For crying out loud, this should've not been possible if they knew Katniss would be boarding and it's a weak way for her to know the rebellion is happening as they know it. That's more ridiculous than the people at the party not hearing Effie tell Katniss & Peeta to hold hands. And why doesn't Snow keep surveilling Katniss after he spotted her kissing Gale? Had he done that, Katniss would've had her privacy revoked to the point where she wouldn't be able to talk about running away with him. Also, why the hell didn't Haymitch ever talk about the Quarter Quell? If he knew the cameras were always gonna be on Katniss, he should've given her a heads up she would compete again. And I don't understand why it takes so long for the fog to follow Katniss' group after Mags walks into it. It literally slows down for Finnick to react to his loss and it's weird. Ignore this, and you'll still appreciate this film for what it's going for. In conclusion, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the best of the franchise for being the most captivating experience in comparison to the rest, raising the stakes to its highest to set up a grand conclusion. If you enjoyed the first one and are curious how the rest of the story is executed, see this now.
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