The Empire Strikes Out: "Catching Fire: The Hunger Games" Movie Review

I walked away from The Hunger Games, the first part of the dystopian trilogy based on the popular teen novels, with mixed feelings.  While I admired it as a movie, I thought it was a dark story, and questioned its appropriateness for the middle school and high school audience it was obviously aimed at.  I went to see the second installment, Catching Fire, mainly out of sense of obligation; since I did write about the first film I might as well see this thing through.  I left Catching Fire, again with mixed feelings: It was an emotionally engaging film that that offers the sense of hope that the first movie lacked, but it's cliff hanger ending misses it's mark.

Our story takes up several months after the 74th Hunger Games ended:  Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is back in District 12, living in relative comfort after she and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) broke precedent by becoming the first duel winners in the game's history.  President Snow (Donald Sotherland), not happy with the trick they pulled, and nervous that this act of defiance is fueling the fire of discontent in the other Districts, wants to find a way to either discredit Katniss, or else destroy her.  On a victory tour of the Districts she sees hints of the oppression of the people and their increasing defiance.  The whole point of the games is to keep the populous fearful and pacified, and the entire balance that has kept the Capital in control is at risk.  The plot is hatched by a new game master (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to pick the participants of the upcoming 75th games from the pool of surviving victors.  Since Katniss is the only female winner from her district we know that she will go.  The only question is if Peeta or Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), their mentor from the last time, will represent the men.

All and all I found the violence less intense than the first movie, and the depth of the characters more profound.  Yes we get the star crossed love angle that you might expect from a teen adventure, but not everything is fun and romance.  Katniss suffers from post traumatic shock, and the thought of having to go back out into the arena nearly drivers her over the edge.  While more than a few of the returning participants seem to be all in, others are obviously leery, discontented and in one case down right bitter with the prospect of having to engage in a kill or be killed competition yet again.

More than the first film, I saw definite borrowing from other movies, including the Star Wars series, The Matrix,  and of course The Running Man.  But the entire experience is original enough, and they avoided simply redoing the first move, which is always a danger with sequels, that I could forgive the cribbing.  The ending most reminded me of the Empire Strikes Back (with a touch of Matrix) but instead of our heroes being up against the wall they clearly have the momentum on their side, even if our heroine is a tad confused.  It seemed to me to go against the spirit of a cliff hanger, until I saw that they are going to pull the most popular cinematic trick of the twenty-first century; the final installment if being made into two movies.  My guess is that the really perilous ending with come around next time.

So, a mixed but positive review from me.  It was engrossing on many levels, and the performances, especially by Ms. Lawrence, are better than we usually see in these kinds of movies.  The themes of economic and governmental oppression, media manipulation, self sacrifice and hope are strong.  On the negative side I guess at a certain point when it becomes clear that the sides are being drawn and system is being challenged I was wondering what took these people 75 years to figure out a strategy.  The ending also seemed a bit bland.  I understand that there wasn't supposed to be a real pay off at the end, but I wish they left me with a greater sense of suspense.  We are left with questions, but I was left wondering how the bad guys will be defeated, not if they will be, which seems to defeat at lest some of the purpose of a cliff hanger.