THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Ablaze With Blockbuster Filmmaking

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) – ***

As far as blockbuster sequels go, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is about as good a follow-up as we can expect these days. The Empire Strike Back, it is not. But the second film in The Hunger Games series is great is ways the first film isn’t. And it’s lacking in many ways the first film is. But if there’s one constant between this film and it’s predecessor, it’s the consistently outstanding Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence returns here as Katniss who is back in District 12 after winning the 74th Hunger Games with her fellow tribute, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). The pair are getting ready to embark on the annual Victory Tour, when Paneem autocrat President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays her a visit.

After her victory by apparent defiance of the Capitol at the end of the last Hunger Games, unrest and insurgency has started to erupt in the poor worker districts. And Snow gives Katniss an ultimatum: Quash the bubbling rebellion by showing she’s on the Capitol’s team or see the people she loves hurt, including her lifelong friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth).

The tour isn’t a smashing success in this regard, with residents in the districts being hauled away, beaten or killed for showing support for her apparent contempt. And that means Snow has to come up with another solution: The Quarter Quell. For the 75th Hunger Games, Snow holds a special contest to show that even the strongest among the districts are not out of the Capitol iron grip, one that sees previous Hunger Games winners return to the Arena for another battle to the death.

As the only female winner from District 12, Katniss will go back in. And when Peeta volunteers for their mentor and former winner Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), he goes back in, too. But something is different this time and Katniss knows it. As she enters the arena, alliances built outside by Haymitch begin to take hold inside, and the alliance members appear to have one common goal: To keep Katniss alive.

Anyone who has read the book knows why Katniss needs to survive. And anyone paying attention during Katniss’s dance early in the film with the new Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymor Hoffman), know it too. She’s the face of the rebellion whether she wants to be or not. This film, the second in what will be a quadrilogy, has one basic goal: To show us and her what is at stake. In that respect, Catching Fire succeeds.

The film pays special attention to the lives of the people in the various districts through quick cuts along the victory tour, and gives contrast to those lives by spending more time in the indulgent, ridiculously wealthy Capitol. Unlike the first film, which rushes full force toward the Hunger Games, this film takes its time providing much needed exposition into the scale of the oppression.

As Katniss, Lawrence is the same tough as nails tribute that she was in the first film, with added perspective. She’s a little more saucy in this one and a little more defiant. We see more of the Katniss that we got in the book, the one that looks upon the excess of the Capitol with a critical eye, than we did in The Hunger Games. Under the direction Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, as well as the rest of the cast, seem more adventurous in their portrayals. It could simply be because the narrative stakes are much higher, but either way, Jennifer Lawrence builds on the Katniss she developed in the first film and puts more of her oddball self into the role.

Katniss isn’t the only standout, though. As Effy Trinket, Elizabeth Banks acts as a surrogate for the Capitol’s people. She’s the handler of two Hunger Games victors and should be at the height of her career. But she sees, despite her want not to, the full impact of the Capitol’s plan to destroy Katniss. While residents of the districts are well aware of the oppression, Banks’s Effy suddenly sees the consequence of their lavish lifestyles. And it isn’t pretty.

Despite outstanding performances all around, including a tight screenplay that pays much more attention to the supporting cast than did the previous film, it’s Francis Lawrence who proves to be the victor here. With him at the helm, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire seems much more expansive and cinematic than the previous film. Suddenly, this blockbuster franchise looks and feels like a blockbuster.

Lawrence, who previously directed and executive produced the similarly themed Kings on NBC, understands the material in a way that makes it much darker and more subversive than the previous director Gary Ross’s vision. It’s not pitch perfect, not even close, but the things we had to reach for in Hunger Games are much easier to grasp in Catching Fire. The combination of a better screenplay by Oscar winners Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt and Lawrence’s visionary eye makes Catching Fire an all around stronger picture.

But that’s only when comparing the film to the first one. As far as the movie itself goes, there is still a lot of grasping to do as an audience. It’s not the simplest narrative to structure into a film, and like the first movie, another half hour could have gone a long way to making this already two and a half hour picture much more complete.

In the end, Catching Fire is a film sits in the middle of a greater story and there’s so much more to be told that we haven’t learned yet, even if we should have. It’s more The Two Towers or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban than it is The Empire Strikes Back or Terminator 2. If the final two films in The Hunger Games saga can answer some questions, the whole of series may be greater than the sum of its parts. In the hands of Francis Lawrence’s creative team, I’m confident that it can be.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire—directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman—is in theaters now.