Whetting our
appetites
When the first Hunger
Games film was released last year, it came as a breath of fresh air. Not
only for its teenage girl target audience, who had been served a stale diet of Twilight films by Hollywood in preceding
years, but also through its dependence on character and plot over special
effects, three dimensional female lead, and the sincerity and intelligence of
its political satire.
With this in mind, the series’ second installment The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is
welcomed with open arms. And right from the off we’re in familiar territory,
watching Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) hunting in the woods with her trademark
bow and arrow. But, when the animal she fires at transforms into a child in her
imagination, it becomes clear that life for PTSD-suffering Katniss is far from
what it once was following her victory at the hunger games.
This sets a pattern for much of the film; scenes and
scenarios from the first film are revisited, only this time are tinged with
added tension and apprehension. When Katniss and fellow winner Peeta (Josh
Hutchinson) are presented in front of the district crowds, this time as
champions rather than candidates, they witness a reaction of sombre resistance
against the repressive state, which, much to their horror, is ruthlessly punished.
Early on, the plot centres round Katniss struggling to come
to terms with her new found status as figure of hope for an increasingly
rebellious populous. On her obligatory victory tour visiting all twelve districts,
she sparks, albeit unwittingly, a rebellious fervour that threatens to reach
boiling point. These tremors of revolutionary activity are the most compelling
aspect of the films, and feel like the natural direction for the sequel to take
following the climax of the previous film.
However, the film’s title retains ‘The Hunger Games’ for a
reason, as the president (Donald Sutherland) decides to stage a special edition
of the annual event featuring all the previous winners, ostensibly to celebrate
the games’ 75th anniversary, but in reality to kill Katniss and
crush the hope of the increasingly restless masses.
This move may make sense as a political strategy from the
president, but for the purposes of the film it’s a little disappointing. Rather
than diving into the inevitable revolution, we’re instead treated to another
round of the hunger games, only this time without the originality and freshness
that made them so intriguing first time round. The build up to the games - featuring
once more Woody Harrelson’s drunken mentor Haymitch, Lenny Kravitz’s noble
stylist Cinna and Elizabeth Banks’ shallow but good-hearted Effie - may be charged
with a sense of impending doom, but at times it does feel as if we’re going
through the motions.
One thing that most of the cinema’s best sequels have in
common is the introduction of new elements to expand upon the ideas presented
in the preceding film. In The Empire
Strikes Back, for instance, events take place in the distinctly novel setting
of the snowy planet Hoth, while later the iconic character Yoda makes his first
(and best) appearance. The Two Towers,
meanwhile, shifted the focus away from the relatively small scale of The Fellowship of the Ring and revolved
around the grand set piece of the battle of Helms Deep, as well as introducing a
fascinating new character in Gollum.
By contrast, the final act of Catching Fire pits its characters in an almost identical forest to
once more compete in the hunger games. Nothing substantial has been added to
the ideas of the first instalment, with the games playing out in much the same
fashion they did first time round, and the most significant new character, an
ambiguous political figure played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, is given very few
lines.
All this said, The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire is still a very enjoyable film, and deserves
credit for its moral and political complexity, as well as Jennifer Lawrence’s
brilliant imagining of her character. As
blockbusters go it’s one of the most intelligent, even consciously undermining
the very things you’d expect such a film to contain; Katniss’ romances are presented
either as distractions that must be sacrificed for the greater good, or as an
invention constructed by the media, while the handsome love interest takes his
shirt off not for the audience to swoon, but to receive a flogging at the hands
of the police.
But all in all this feels like a transitional film getting
us to the next point in the story’s arc. The last fifteen minutes are
spectacular and leave us hungry for the next film; but this instalment would have
benefited from getting there quicker.
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