Film: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Director: Francis Lawrence
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: B+

A solid film--and a definite improvement over the first movie--that somehow I found myself unable to fully connect with. I'm not clear on why exactly, since I like the people involved (though I love Jennifer Lawrence, she still seems like a too-womanly choice to play this teen heroine to me), I like the dystopian world, and there are a lot of fun twists and turns. Perhaps it's because I remembered most of them from the book?

That is the danger of adaptation, of course, and has been since the first filmmakers tried their hand at adapting stories for the screen. (What was the first? Edison's Frankenstein? That would be worth looking up...) I'm not opponent to adaptation, and I don't think a bad adaptation of a book in any way hurts the book, or that a good adaptation supersedes it. By most measures I can think of, Catching Fire is a good adaptation. But there's a level of "been there done that already" to the whole affair that agitates me a little bit. First of all, on a basic plot level, it's really similar to the first book/movie (and that was a problem I had with the book as well): Katniss is in the Hunger Games, against her will, trying to stay alive, not sure who to trust, not clear on the political repercussions of her actions. Is that the plot of book one or book two? Yes. Sure, it's all on a bigger scale than the first time, but not so much so that it overwhelms. Second, knowing that it's the middle of a trilogy, there's no question of her survival, and you know this is just a lead up to a bigger final act. So some of the drama gets sapped. It's all fine, I suppose, in that it gave me exactly what I expected. But that's also my problem: It gave me exactly what I expected. 

There are a few exceptions to that. There's a scene early in the film, during Katniss' victory tour, that really is pretty powerful and moving, and Lawrence's shock at the events that she indirectly causes is quite effective. She does a fine job with the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that Katniss would certainly have. And she's just a fun actress to watch, no matter what she's working with. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is also quite good and understated in his role as Plutarch Heavensbee (man, the names in this thing). And the climax really is pretty exciting and appropriately chaotic. 

I am looking forward to the next film, I just want to be drawn in a little more than I was.