I wasn’t crazy about the first book, and liked the first movie only marginally better. That’s why I was surprised when I not only enjoyed Catching Fire, I loved it. The competitors this time are not children, they’re adults — many of whom are openly defiant about having to compete again. Victors are so traumatized by their first experiences that most can barely face having to go through it again. Not only that, but we see right away that these victors (we could also call them victims) team up early on in the process. They join forces in an effort to outwit the Capitol. Rather than being a story about how these people are pawns of a corrupt government, this is a story of people plotting to triumph over the government and take it down, rather than each other.
As with the first movie in this series, the acting is high quality from each and every actor. Jennifer Lawrence is broken as Katniss in the beginning, but she regains enough strength to want to protect Peeta. Jena Malone plays former victor Johanna with just the right combination of anger and strength. Johanna knows she has nothing to lose and Jena conveys her boldness to perfection. As Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Head Game Maker, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman oozes charisma while keeping us guessing. Is he allied with Snow? Or is he part of the plot against the government?
Although it ends with a cliffhanger, every Hunger Games fan knows there’s more to the story and many probably have read the books – but it’s interesting to see how they will be translated to the screen. Director Francis Lawrence has done an incredible job with this second film in the series and he is also directing Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2, which gives me high hopes for more movie viewing excellence when they hit the big screen in November 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Special extras include a sneak peek at Divergent; five deleted scenes including one called Finnick ties the knot, which gives you another glimpse at this intriguing character whom we’ll see more of in the next installments; a fascinating audio commentary with director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson in which they explain why certain details or scenes were chosen, comparing the book by Suzanne Collins to the movie; and on Blu-ray: a nine-part feature length documentary called Surviving the Game: Making Catching Fire that gives fans a detailed behind-the-scenes look at filming of the movie. ~Alexandra Heilbron