It’s always a pleasant surprise to see a sequel not only
learn from the mistakes of its predecessor, but to move forward exploring the
aftermath of its initial narrative. In the case of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire it is a modest improvement, but
improvement nonetheless. I suppose when you make nearly $700 million dollars
worldwide, you can afford an upgrade in the scale and believability of your
special effects. But more than that, director Francis Lawrence, taking over for
Gary Ross, brings a clarity of vision and the script – adapted this time by
Simon Beaufoy and Michael DeBruyn – finds a leaner and tougher approach to
plunging us into the tangle of potent sociopolitical allegory. The filmmakers
have, of course, the novel by Suzanne Collins to work from, but the film’s
sequel represents a step up in quality, something not represented in the
books. I get the feeling that the ideal director for this material would be the
violent satiric Paul Verhoeven of Robocop
or Starship Troopers, but Lawrence,
having directed Constantine and I am Legend, is no stranger to character
based spectacle. He gets the details and surface excitement right and the
adaptation keeps character and politics balanced.
When we last saw The Hunger Games, an annual children’s fight-to-the-death
put on by the Capitol to keep the 12 Districts of dystopian future nation Panem
in line, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh
Hutcherson) became unprecedented double-victors. They managed to finagle a fake
love story for the Capitol’s cameras that caused a rule change when the
gamemaster balked at televising the Games’ first double suicide conclusion. Catching Fire picks up as Katniss and
Peeta are sent on a victory tour in advance of the next year’s Games, a tour
that ignites tremors of rebellion throughout the country. News of the Capitol’s
loosening grasp, as represented by these two kids who beat the system, only
brings down the violence of the state all the harder. Because Lawrence (the
director, not the star, no relation) holds the camera steady as the screenplay
allows the film to let the mournful anguished aftermath of the first to linger,
it’s impactful in its stillness.
Transparently evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) feels
so threatened by these victors, he commissions a new gamemaster (Philip Seymour
Hoffman) to devise a set of rules for the upcoming Hunger Games that’ll leave
the Districts shaking and complacent with fear once again. These two actors
spend their screen time chewing over every evil growl as they scheme a way to
eliminate Katniss from the situation. So it’s back to the arena again, only
this time the tributes competing are not kids, but former champions, some still
young, like our heroes, others elderly, unfairly thrust back into the battle.
Katniss and Peeta, plagued by guilt and post-traumatic stress dreams, are
forced to fight once more. But now the Captiol’s men behind the curtain seem
determined to kill them all. The arena – with its man-eating monkeys, poison
fog, and other disasters that make for good CGI spectacle – is as deadly as the
competitors, who feel betrayed by the society that’s coddled them in the years
since their victories. It’s a volatile situation, vibrantly dramatized in a
sequel that’s unafraid to complicate its premise and slowly radicalize its
characters.
The first film was about a girl learning to game an unfair
system to survive. The sequel is a film about how she responds to finding
herself an accidental symbol of burgeoning revolt. She agrees with the ideas she
has come to represent, but can’t figure out how to best position herself (if at
all) as the savior the people crave. Lawrence (the star, not the director, no
relation) lets us see her fear and resolve as she feels her way towards
becoming the rebellion she represents. She doesn’t want to hurt those she
loves, like her sister (Willow Shields) and best friend (Liam Hemsworth), but
as the Capitol conspires to restrict her choices, she’s left with only her own
resilience to guide her as she must decide who to trust.
Woody Harrelson, as a drunken mentor, Elizabeth Banks, as a
flibbertigibbet slowly growing a conscience, Lenny Kravitz, as a charitable
designer, and Stanley Tucci, as a teeth-flashing talk show host, reprise their
roles. New to the scene are Jeffrey Wright and Amanda Plummer as techie
middle-aged tributes, Sam Clafin, as a handsome young tribute who may be an
ally, and Jena Malone as an entirely fearless tribute furious about her
situation and ready to tear down the Capitol on live broadcast if possible.
It’s a whole lot of character and situation storming about the film, but
because the world of Panem has ever so slightly grown more complicated it can
more than accommodate the additional interest.
It becomes, at times, a fairly moving picture of resistance
and defiance in the face of sickly opulent fascism that’s willing to put the
underclasses to work and, when they won’t, put them down. The metaphor of
sociopolitical traps – have-nots violently encouraged to submit to the haves –
is potent, as is its mass mindless entertainment as purposeful distraction of
serious injustice. Like its predecessor, Catching
Fire largely separates its ideas and its action, forcing the audience to
think and feel through an hour of politics and satire sitting tantalizingly on
the surface, before plunging into crisp, relentless action and danger in the
back half. The bifurcation works, loading up the back half with busy thrills
after slowly pulling tension out of scenes in which some of our finest
character actors in sometimes silly costumes say serious and goofy things
surrounded by spare sci-fi future chic.
It’s all anchored so strongly in Katniss, her journey, and
her determination that it doesn’t get lost in the precision campiness of the
Capitol, the constant – and coherently photographed – action of the Games or
the sometimes misshapen narrative. For in true middle-chapter franchise
fashion, Catching Fire, for all its
melodrama and movement, doesn’t begin or conclude. It starts in the aftermath
of the first and ends by excitingly trumpeting into a cliffhanger teasing more
story to come. But it has enough surprises along the way that it doesn’t feel
like a cheat so much as the exciting promise of escalation to come.
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