Okay everyone has is all super excited for this movie and I have succeeded where I did not from the last film in reading the book first long before the movie came out. So here's how The Hunger Games Catching Fire.
Plot: A year has past after the last Hunger Games and Katniss has become an icon for the remaining districts after her defiance against the Capitol with Peeta. As a result, President Snow is making this year's Hunger Games a Quarter Quell where the contestants are past winners from previous games. So Katniss and Peeta are sent back to the Capitol where they have to fight the other victors while Snow plans to use it to kill Katniss as a way to end any rebellion against the Capitol.
Now this is what I call improvement. In fact, it's a big enough improvement that it actually got me truly invested in what was happening. Because for those of you who have not read my review for the first film or may not have remembered it if you did, I basically said it was just a nice film and hardly anything more then that. And as much as people are probably not going to like what I'm going to say next, the books didn't do a whole lot for me either. They're not horrible or anything, but at the end of the day, all they did for me was just tell me the entire story and then for me to go "Well okay then. Good to know." So the books didn't do a whole lot more for me then the first film did. But Catching Fire surprised me by actually getting me invested in what was happening. Everything made more sense, we saw much more of what happens in both the all around world and The Hunger Games then we did before, heck even the characters and the relationships between them were done so much better. Bringing back my review to the first film up, I did talk about in my spoiler section (*chuckles* does anyone remember when I use to do that for practically all of my reviews?), I said that the relationship between Katniss and Peeta were sudden and didn't make a lot of sense. And how it seemed like she was more into Gale during the beginning of the movie and things like that. But here, these relationships are more developed to the point where - while it isn't perfect, it shows more of what Katniss feels about both Peeta and Gale and ultimately which side to root for. But that doesn't quite stop there. We also got a little more into the main characters' relationship with some of the supporting characters like Prim, Effie, Haymitch and so on. The visuals are also a ton better. I mean they were good in the last film too, but I feel they did a much better job here. And best of all as those of you who have seen the movie have probably been waiting for me to mention this, wide shots and no shaky cams. I thought at first that the director and editor of the previous film just learned from their mistakes, but it turns out they got totally a totally different director and editor who seem to have a better way at showing what is happening on screen. And they did. And the results are great. Seeing the environment, characters and especially the action with these wider shots makes Catching Fire one of those recent films like The Avengers and a fair bit of The Dark Knight Rises that really show how great action in these kinds of films are when you clearly see what's going on frame by frame. Now as great as it is, it does have some minor problems. But the biggest one that comes to mind is one that this one video review Movie Bob point out, which is how they introduced some of the other contestants with their abilities and stuff like that, but they get killed off without their deaths ever shown. Now I understand why considering that's basically what happens in the book (at least as far as I remember it) but when you think about it, that can bring something of a let down for people like Movie Bob who wanted to see more of those particular contestants.
And that's my review for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It has better camera work and editing, better development of the characters and the relationships, improving visuals and storytelling and a film that for me personally, greatly succeeded where neither the previous film or any of the books did in getting me truly invested. It's definitely the best so far in the film franchise and I hope they can somehow get better and better despite the fact that they are spitting the third book into two films. (seriously guys, just stop.) So if you haven't seen it yet, I recommend it. If you weren't all that much into the first film, you should at least find this one to be a much bigger improvement.
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