Catching Fire is bigger and better than its predecessor

Kajahni Tharmarajan
The Fulcrum

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

OTTAWA (CUP) — Catching Fire is the second instalment in The Hunger Games saga which features political strife, gruesome violence and heroic rebellion all set to a futuristic totalitarian regime.

Unlike most Hollywood sequels, Catching Fire is bigger and better than its predecessor without shoving flashy CGI or contrived punch lines at its viewers; the first film really is a warm-up of what’s to come.

In Catching Fire, the heroine Katniss Everdeen is thrown into another violent confrontation against the totalitarian ruler President Snow and inadvertently becomes the catalyst for a daring new revolution. Everdeen’s awesome, ass-kicking character makes Twilight’s Bella Swan seem like a whiny damsel in distress with no self-preservation. It’s refreshing to have a strong female lead on the big screen with more balls and less egocentrism than her stereotypical male counterparts. It’s safe to say this film passes the Bechdel test.

The intricate sets breathe life into Suzanne Collins’s literary creation and the cast is brilliant at encapsulating the individual personalities needed to create the necessary chemistry in the film’s relationships. It’s a huge relief that the new director chose a cleaner approach, opting out of the artsy shaky camera angles from the first film to a steadier gaze that focuses on the action and avoids a nauseous aftermath for viewers.

The only real disappointment is that the film slightly censors the violent sequences to shield younger viewers from the gravity of the situation. So, while the PG rating and lack of blood is a little too vanilla for the fight-to-the-death subject matter, Catching Fire still easily stuns and exceeds expectations of even the most obsessive die-hard fans.