Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

 
The sequel is a strange little animal. Adapted from books, or made from original concepts (I don’t know if original is the apt term in movies anymore), its job is a tough one: build on the first part while simultaneously wheedle enough interest to keep the audience happy and willing to shell out bucks for part three. In “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’s” case, the part three would be part three and four, because the franchise is just too awesome a money spinner to confine to one movie. Why have one climatic movie when two will do just fine? (re: “Harry Potter”, “Twilight Saga” and “The Hobbit”, which outdoes every one of them).

So, as I was saying: the job of the sequel is a straight forward one. Make you believe in where the characters are at the moment and what they are going through, so when the end starts maxing out, gaining momentum from one big pompous blockbuster event to another, side-stepping scenes where characters go through momentary emotional voids, we don’t miss the traumas that led them there. The sequels are, therefore, sometimes lingering and stale, because the characters have less to do.

In “Catching Fire”, based on Suzanne Collin’s wildly popular middle book, adapted by Simon Beaufoy (“127 Hours”, “Slumdog Millionaire”) and Michael deBruyn (an alias for writer Michael Arndt, “Little Miss Sunshine”, “Toy Story 3”), we see the characters do a lot of forced political round tripping across the 12 districts of Panem for the government.