The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
There were mixed reviews for the first "Hunger Games" movie and so I was pretty surprised to find that I loved it. It wasn't the best film of that year, but it had a lot going for it and in spite of the bizarre premise it had me hooked every step of the way. In actual fact, the politics of "The Hunger Games" was rather more interesting than the battle scenes. Making it an interesting contrast with "Battle Royale" where the politics was barely developed at all, the characters all felt like cartoon characters and the main thing going for it was the bloodthirsty action. With "The Hunger Games" the weak point really seemed to be the action in the games themselves, but the characters and the scenario was set up so well that it didn't matter very much.
I've been a little confused by all the hate against Gary Ross as a director. People claimed that there was too much shaky-cam in the first film, but the most obvious examples of that which come to mind are all shot from the main character's perspective and there's an important sequence where our protagonist has been drugged. I think perhaps one of the most successful aspects of the first movie was the way it helped us to share the perspective of the protagonist, Katniss. I'm not sure that I ever really understood Katniss terribly deeply. She's an emotionally closed-off character for the most part. But I had a good sense of her struggle and her determination in the face of adversity.
So now Gary Ross is replaced by Francis Lawrence, a director I mainly know for the movie "Constantine": A bit of a jumbled film that failed to make up for its miscast lead actor (Keanu Reeves is completely out-acted by Rachel Weisz in it), but had a splattering of interesting visuals.
I will admit straight off the bat that "Catching Fire" has a greater sense of scale than the first movie. The dystopian capital now looks like a combination of Nazi and Roman design (since the Nazi aesthetic was based somewhat on that of the Roman Empire). Also during the actual "Hunger Games" we have a much better idea of how the arena is laid out. This isn't necessarily a criticism of the first movie, since we often had the impression in the first movie of Katniss hiding in the thick trees and basically being lost in the woods. But in this film, the layout of the arena is much more important and the design is rather more intricate. Still, there were some very interesting shots in the original movie and I rarely found anything was quite as moving this time around. The scene in the original movie where Katniss has a memory of an explosion in the mines, for example, where we see her home exploding from the inside, really stood out for me.
It's a long long time before the games actually get started and I remember checking my watch quite early on wondering when anything was actually going to happen. But what is surprising about this is that the pre-games section of the movie is all about the politics and in the first movie that was my favourite bit. But this time I felt that the politics was rather less impactful. Once you've seen one rebel unceremoniously gunned down by a faceless stormtrooper you've seen them all. There were a few points where it felt a little more weighty. An actual named character is beaten in the town square, Peeta goes off-script to express sadness at one of the competitors who died during their games, the question is raised whether the stormtroopers are prepared to kill a celebrity Hunger Games victor for speaking out in compassion, and even Katniss' clothes designer starts trying to make political gestures. But in the end there's not enough follow-up on any of these points. Overall this felt to me like a typical book adaptation where the film is more interested in getting us through each key point from the book, than in telling a decent coherent holistic story in the film itself.
Perhaps if we had a better idea of the motivations of the villains that might have helped. In the first movie there was a great moment where the leader of this dystopia explains that the Hunger Games is basically a show of force to keep the various districts in line. He notes that he could just as easily take a couple of random children from each district, line them all up and shoot them. But the point of the Hunger Games is to make all the districts complicit in the act, because they all have the hope that one of their own children might survive and become a celebrity. That was a very short explanation, but it tied together pretty much everything that happened in the first movie.
In the second movie we are told that Katniss' gamble to save both herself and Peeta at the end of the last game with a feined romance has turned Katniss into a hero. The interesting side of this is that Katniss is not obviously a hero unless her romance with Peeta is fake, so she is ordered to make her relationship with Peeta seem real so that the state can more easily dismiss the idea that their survival in the games was an act of defiance. This initially seems interesting, but over the course of the movie it gets pretty tiresome and it's here where the decision to randomly introduce a love triangle becomes particularly problematic. If Katniss genuinely loves Peeta as anything more than a friend then it completely undermines the whole opening premise of the film. What is more, when Katniss' feelings for Peeta grow in this movie I'm not really emotionally on board. It didn't feel natural to me.
Then again you can say that about everything that happens here. The movie as a whole generally fails to convince me of most of its emotional beats. We are supposed to accept that the cruel woman who happily and joyfully accepted Katniss as her district's tribute in the first film is now supposed to be a sympathetic character - and what's more, comic relief. I'm not buying it.
Katniss makes a defiant gesture against the state in her try-outs for the games and gets no comeuppance for it (but naturally no one did that in the last movie because everyone really really wanted to be there). I'm not buying it.
Katniss seems to be the only one to get a present sent to her in the games this time, but she claims that it's from Haymitch not her sponsors (though I suppose it wouldn't be from rich sponsors in the capital when she's acting so defiantly against this dystopian empire prior to the games). Haymitch cannot just send whatever he wants into the games and we've no reason to accept that Katniss has sponsors this time around so, once again, I'm not buying it.
Someone who acted in defiance against the state gets killed just before Katniss is about to enter the games and she freaks the hell out. People have been killed for defying the state all through the movie, but apparently this one surprised her. Whatever! I'm not buying it.
And one last thing, Katniss is experiencing PTSD and it's triggered when she's doing some of her regular hunting. Fine. And it's not triggered when she gets back to killing people in the next set of Games. Fine again. And she's getting nightmares. That makes sense. And she asks Peeta, this guy she knows is attracted to her and who the state is forcing her to fein romantic feelings towards, to get into bed with her to help her sleep. Sorry, no. Not buying it.
So yeah, I have a lot of problems with this movie.
Even with PTSD I thought Katniss was crying way too much. It's all about how you present these things and I wasn't given the impression that Katniss was trying to be brave but just couldn't help it. I got the impression that filmmakers wanted Katniss to portray herself as being emotional because she is female. After all, Peeta claims to be having nightmares too, but he always seems cool, calm and collected. It's just Katniss who is shown as letting her emotions overpower her. Peeta is, of course, played by Josh Hutcherson, and once again he's the best thing in the film. Nothing on his performance as Clapton Davis in "Detention", mind you. And while I'm never on board with the idea of a romantic connection between Katniss and Peeta, their chemistry as friends is very good. Also as Peeta, Josh Hutcherson has some of the funnier lines in the film.
I hate to say it, but my issue with "Catching Fire" is that I was board and unmoved. I know there are plenty of people who found themselves much more excited and engaged by this sequel than they were by the original and I'm sure plenty others who found it perfectly good at holding their attention. But I spent most of the runtime waiting for the movie to start pulling me in. I really wanted to care, but I didn't feel like the movie's presentation was making that possible.
I loved the first "Hunger Games" film and I was totally up for a sequel. I've been a sci-fi fan longer than I've been a horror fan and the idea of dystopias fascinates me. And yet, for some unclear reason, this film just did not work for me. I didn't get the oppressive atmosphere of this dystopian state. It just felt like more of the same with no new twists and no clear new motivations. I was never even entirely sold on Katniss' importance, but I thought this would be something the movie would build on. I don't really think it did. One unassailable issue seems to be that the most stupid decision anyone could possibly make if trying to deal with a heroine who made a name for herself in a televised blood sport, is to put her back on tv in another round of that same televised blood sport. Considering that this dystopian state is supposed to be so practiced in media manipulation, it's hard to understand why they are making so many rookie mistakes. But I wanted to forgive the movie everything, if only it could just pull me in. And that just never happened.
I feel almost guilty giving this a low score. Like it must be my fault. I realise that I'm giving this a lower score than "John Carter", but to be quite frank "John Carter" did a better job of pulling emotional strings and making me care. And in my own review, I have to be honest about how I feel. My scores are based primarily on how entertaining I find a film and in the case of "Hunger Games: Catching Fire"? I was not entertained.
D+