The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

         A more fully developed world, better drawn characters and sharper satire mark this superior sequel to 2012’s The Hunger Games. Not that The Hunger Games was that bad. It’s easy to lump this movie series in with other sci-fi/fantasy stories aimed at young adults, like Twilight. But both Catching Fire and The Hunger Games do more than coast on the appeal of their young stars. Catching Fire, in particular, is a full-blooded pop satire with a well-realized sci-fi setting and characters you want to root for. Yes, it’s still a movie that pits a couple of good-looking teenagers against the world, but here their struggles actually seem to mean something.

        When we last saw Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), she had survived the Hunger Games, a kind of mash-up between gladiatorial fights to the death and American Idol, and was headed home. When she gets a chilly house-call from the calculating President Snow (Donald Sutherland), she learns she won’t get off so easy. Her attempted double-suicide at the end of the last Hunger Games, President Snow tells her, is being viewed as a sign of rebellion against the all-powerful Capitol. This cannot be tolerated, and if she wants to avoid retaliation she and fellow victor Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) must convince the populace of their loyalty.

        The ever-earnest Katniss can’t quite pull this off, and Snow decides that the only way to get rid of her without turning her into a martyr is to throw her back into the Games where she can die by the hand of someone other than him. Like the last movie, a large amount of Catching Fire is devoted to the time before the Games begin, and it’s a lot better for it. There’s both drama and comedy in the way the rough-and-tumble Katniss tries to adjust to her new role as propaganda tool, and Donald Sutherland gets to lend his glowering charisma in an expanded part. There’s a love triangle, too. Katniss is torn between Peeta, who likes Katniss more than she likes him, and brooding childhood friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth), but her decision is never the focus of the movie. It’s all about public opinion- how to create, keep, and hold it- with the steely, likable Katniss caught in the middle.

        The behind-the-scenes lead-up to the Hunger Games is so compelling that it’s almost a disappointment when they finally begin. Like last time, Katniss must face off against a vast field of contestants, but most have a bit more personality this go-round, especially Jena Malone as an unhinged combatant prone to public acts of nudity. The action also moves at a much faster clip, as though the filmmakers know the Hunger Games are the least interesting part of The Hunger Games and want to run through them as quickly as possible.

        Catching Fire has officially become a massive box office hit, so it comes as no surprise that the producers intend to milk the series for all it’s worth. There are two more movies queued up, each based off one half of the third and final book in author Suzanne Collins’ series.  Catching Fire ends on a cliffhanger, but this nervy blockbuster gives us a reason to feel excited rather than cheated.