The “Catching Fire” in this case is about the fire that is civil discontent brewing in the 12 districts that will soon be the revolution. But also it is the fire that makes me slowly warm up to this franchise. I hated the first one so much that I walked into this with dread and left mildly surprised… How about that? I say that they did something right.
The “Catching Fire” in this case is about the fire that is civil discontent brewing in the 12 districts that will soon be the revolution. But also it is the fire that makes me slowly warm up to this franchise. I hated the first one so much that I walked into this with dread and left mildly surprised… How about that? I say that they did something right.
Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) is now scarred from her experiences from the first movie (just like me) and has become a conflicted symbol of the Arab-Spring-like uprising in all the districts. Her fake love affair with fellow survivor contestant Peeta makes it confusing for her real love interest Gale, especially when she starts falling for Peeta after all, just as President Snow demanded in the first place. Catch that smoldering heat!
Actually, what is catching fire is her wardrobe. Not once but twice! Lenny Kravitz plays her wardrobe designer and is the supposed genius behind the forever-smoldering cleavage bondage dress and the fully incinerating wedding dress to evening wear convertible number that is also the symbol for the revolution. (Frankly, I think all wedding dresses should incinerate right after the ceremony to save on space in the attic for useful things like old VCR’s and Atari game systems. And if that sparks a revolution all the better.)
Anyway, that aside, the writers solved a problem with this second part of the trilogy, which is how do you get them to the death match again? The answer is simple: With the 75th Anniversary Quell where past winners have to come out of retirement to kill each other again! That flimsy excuse is actually written into the script as a flimsy excuse by the elite to rid them of Katniss and crush the hope of a rebellion. It’s not a flaw if you are pointing out the flaw! Clever, easy, let’s get to the mayhem!
Of course, taking 2.5 hours to tell this story seems like a slog in spots, but a lot of it trips along at a thoughtful epic pace. And once the game is in play in the third act, all the tension and pace is back like the first one, only without children killing each other. Instead young adults and one old person (who sacrifices herself, you selfish twentysomethings) go about hunting each other down.
Jammed packed with incredible talent like Jeffery Wright and Amanda Plummer whose few lines must also have come with a backend deal on profit participation. A franchise movie is just the kind of long term nest egg that any actor would want for the later years. I am sure that between takes Donald Sutherland and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were trying to think how the best actors of our time are doing a young adult trilogy as opposed to the classics.Then they lament the nature of our culture in this time.
Catching Fire corrects all the underlying voyeuristic queasiness of the first one by allowing the characters motivation to come from trauma and horror of having to kill each other for sport, and slow boils the revolution that will be the third movie which is the one I probably really wanted to see all along.
Dean Haglund
