“Catching Fire” Catches Attention

My group chat had been texting about it for weeks. They were all dying to see the next in- stallment of the Hunger Games series, “Catching Fire”, at its midnight premiere. I, on the other hand, was indifferent. I hadn’t heard of the series until I saw the first movie, whereas most of my friends had already read all of the books and were obsessed with them. As you can tell, seeing “Catching Fire” was pretty low on my list of priorities, but I had heard good things about it so I decided to tag along with my friends.

Catching Fire picks up shortly where the first movie left off with Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) touring the various districts of Panem as the victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games. The “star-crossed lovers from District 12” are the new beacon of hope for the more impoverished districts. They incite a rebellious feeling in some of the nations’ citizens, causing riots.

Because this year marks Panem’s 75th anniversary of the games, they put on something called the Quarter Quell in which all of the victors of the previous Hunger Games are put in the reaping and Katniss has to fight for her life for the second year in a row.

My friends never actually got around to ordering tickets for the midnight premiere so we headed to the Town Center Plaza Cinemark on a Sunday afternoon at 1:30, ensuring that I wouldn’t doze off, like I do in most movies. And for a Sunday afternoon, the place was absolutely packed. When we got inside the theater the only place we could find to seat the five of us was in the second row, but the crick in my neck at the end of the movie was well worth it.

Within the first 10 minutes of the movie my jaw was hanging wide open. The movie is non-stop action whether a district is rioting or Katniss is battling an obstacle in the arena. The sets aren’t complete fantasy, which makes the story slightly more believable, but they are still fantastic including the new, exotic setting of the arena.

Lawrence plays her part to perfection, which is tough to do with a female lead. She isn’t condescending or overly feminist which would have easily ruined the movie for me. She’s strong and independent but the subtle presence of her struggle of choosing between Peeta and her childhood friend, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), makes her relatable. Her anger and fear are so utterly convincing that her screams almost brought me to tears.

Peeta’s polite, goody-two-shoes personality is a perfect foil to Katniss’s cynical, rebellious nature. While Hurcherson doesn’t dominate as a male lead, he plays a supporting role well.

There also some new characters introduced in this movie like Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin), the youngest victor in the history of the games, and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone) who won the games just four years before, making her bitter about having to compete again.

Claflin could have been the worst actor in the world and it wouldn’t have mattered, he was just nice to look at. The enormous chip on Johanna’s shoulder was just plain annoying and she was by far my least favorite character.

Overall the movie exceeded my expectations. The sets, costumes and life-threatening situations were far more extravagant than those in the first movie. I can’t say how closely the movie resembled the book, but I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with it. The only part I couldn’t stand was the ending because the cliff-hanger left me with so many unanswered questions.

There is only one question I do know the answer to: will I be going to the midnight premiere of the next Hunger Games movie? Most definitely.

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