Every so often a big Hollywood blockbuster completely knocks me off my ass by surprise, and ends up being fantastic. Having found the first Hunger Games film to be merely “all right”, I was skeptical going into “Catching Fire”, the latest installment. I expected a bunch of cheese, over-the-top performances and a pervading sense of been-there-done that, the plague of most studio films today. What I ended up getting was an intelligent, well-structured story with many relevant and important themes that only occasionally tipped the bucket of melodrama.
Beginning not with a big battle or an elaborate, aesthetically pleasing sequence, “Catching Fire”‘s first frame is of our heroine Katniss Everdeen (played by the phenomenal Jennifer Lawrence) in peril. Not physical peril, mind you, but emotional peril. Having murdered a bunch of people in last year’s Hunger Games, Katniss is experiencing P.T.S.D. Visions of Ru and other “fallen tributes” violently dash through her psyche with the force of a 747 junked up on PCP. Her pseudo-boyfriend Gale Hawthorne (an underwhelming Liam Hemsworth) tries to comfort her, but Katniss knows winning the Hunger Games wasn’t the end of her troubles. President Snow (a terrifying Donald Sutherland) is angry and threatened because Katniss’ win is inspiring revolts all through out the colonies and hatches a plan to kill the bitch once and for all. He does this by creating a “Quarter Quell” in which winners from all the districts will compete for survival.
All of the performances are mostly top-notch with Jennifer Lawrence reminding us she is possibly the greatest film actress in her early twenties. Without a strong lead performance, some of Catching Fire’s hammy dialogue would sink like a turd, but Lawrence sells every scene she’s in. Josh Hutcherson is another great young actor who is given the chance to expand the character of Peeta.
Returning cast members Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci and especially Woody Harrelson are solid while Lenny Kravitz is stiff and uncomfortable as Cinna, Katniss’ fashion guru. With his performances in the two Hunger Games and Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire he makes a strong case for musicians to stay out of the acting biz.
There are some awesome additions to the cast including Pulp Fiction’s Amanda Plummer, a super sexy Jena Malone and Jeffrey Wright as a quirky and calculating demolition expert tribute who won his Hunger Game based purely on brains. It’s refreshing to see Wright play a likable character after watching him all this past season on Boardwalk Empire as the absolutely despicable Dr. Narcisse. The best of the cast additions is without question Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Heavensbee, the new game maker charged with the task of killing Katniss by President Snow. Hoffman is perfectly cast here and creates Heavensbee as one of the most realistic villains of the series. Instead of aggressively foaming at the mouth, Hoffman plays the part as cold and methodical. He’s a man smart enough to realize the terrible injustice of this society but ambitious enough to go along with it. I fucking love Philip Seymour Hoffman.
One of the smartest moves this sequel makes (and I’m assuming the novel made as well) was not spending too much time on the actual “game.” We’ve already seen it before in part 1, and a reprisal would seem unnecessary. Catching Fire focuses more on deepening the politics of the world while not-so-subtly hinting at the correlation between this and the growing gap between the 1% and the other 99% of our own world. If there is one complaint I had about Catching Fire, it’s that nothing in it is even remotely subtle. Everything is played to the hilt, with maximum emotional and minimal blood (PG-13 = $$$$) This often works well, mostly because the strength of Lawrence’s performance, but some of it kind of stinks. The scenes with Katniss and Liam Hemsworth are cheesy, artificial and completely unnecessary. Hemsworth’s character serves little purpose in the story other than establishing that Katniss and Peeta are “just friends”.
Even if it isn’t very subtle, Catching Fire is one of the best big budget films I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s consistently entertaining and has a powerful and truthful message at it’s core. Maybe I’ve gone soft, maybe I’ve lost my edge or maybe I just completely missed the mark this time, but Catching Fire is one of the best films I’ve seen this year.
Grade: A-
