The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
review by
ANIZ FILMVALA
*****
STORY.
After surviving the 74th Hunger Games, "tributes" Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark return home to District 12. They now are required to take a victory tour throughout the country. President Coriolanus Snow visits Katniss and tells her she inspired rebellions in the districts when she and Peeta threatened suicide so both might survive the games. He orders Katniss to convince the country her and Peeta's love was real and the reason for their actions, and to convince Snow himself.
The tour first visits District 11, home of Rue, the young girl Katniss tried to protect in the Games. Katniss and Peeta voice their personal thoughts regarding both districts' fallen tributes. A man in the crowd whistles the tune Katniss and Rue used to signal each other, and makes the three-finger salute of District 12. Everyone in the crowd follows suit until a Peacekeeper shoots the man dead, shocking Katniss. Their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, tells Katniss and Peeta the "show" of their relationship must continue for the rest of their lives. Katniss suggests a public engagement between herself and Peeta, which is carried out and celebrated at Snow's home in the Capitol.
Returning home, Katniss warns her friend Gale Hawthorne
of Snow's threat to kill both their families. Peacekeepers crack down in
District 12, and Gale is publicly whipped after attacking new Head Peacekeeper
Romulus Thread. Snow announces Panem's third Quarter Quell, a special version
of the Games held every 25 years. For this edition, all tributes will be
selected from the existing pool of victors. Katniss immediately devotes herself
to ensuring Peeta becomes the Quarter Quell's victor, should he compete in the
Games. At the reaping, Katniss, the district's only living female tribute, and
Haymitch are reaped by chaperone Effie Trinket. Peeta volunteers to take
Haymitch's place and is sent directly to the train with Katniss, without a
chance to say goodbye to their loved ones.
For her pre-Games interview, Katniss wears the dress she would have worn on
her wedding day, as requested by President Snow. When she twirls in the dress
to display it to the audience, it bursts into flames and transforms into an
outfit resembling a mockingjay, designed by Cinna. As a punishment for the
scene it caused, Cinna is savagely beaten seconds before an onlooking Katniss
enters the arena. Moments after the Games begin, Katniss allies with Finnick
Odair and an elderly woman, Mags, from District 4. An electrical barrier shocks
Peeta, stopping his heartbeat until Finnick revives him. Mags sacrifices
herself to a poisonous fog to allow Finnick to save Peeta instead of her. They
rest in the forest, but murderous apes attack. Peeta is again saved when a
woman from District 6, a camouflage expert and drug addict, sacrifices herself.
They escape to the beach, and are met by District 3's tributes, Wiress and
Beetee, and District 7's tribute, Johanna Mason. Wiress discovers the arena is
designed like a clock and every hour a specific attack occurs in its designated
section. After Wiress' death, Beetee suggests electrocuting the two remaining
tributes outside the alliance, District 2's Brutus and Enobaria, using wire and
a tree that is struck by lightning each noon and midnight. Johanna and Katniss
lay the wire while Finnick and Peeta guard Beetee as he wraps the tree. When
the wire snaps, Johanna attacks Katniss, cutting the tracker out of her arm.
Katniss tries to find Peeta at the tree. Unable to, she attaches the remaining
wire to an arrow and shoots it at the force field during a lightning strike,
destroying the arena.Katniss awakens in an aircraft with an unconscious Beetee. Entering the cockpit she finds Haymitch, Finnick and Plutarch Heavensbee, the head gamemaker, revealed to be a rebel against Snow. Learning she is on her way to District 13, though Johanna and Peeta were taken away by the Capitol, she attempts to attack Haymitch for not fulfilling his promise of saving Peeta. Plutarch sedates her and she awakens days later with Gale by her side, who informs her that her family is safe but District 12 has been destroyed.
CRITIC VIEW.
The second film in the Hunger Games trilogy Directed by Francis Lawrence the film is 2 hour plus giving you the much required alluring experience and edge of the seat thrills, leaving you in joie de vivre.
A tale of future war for hunger game is itself a uniqueness of cinematic era of such novel concept; Catching Fire has its focus on the unwarranted indulgence of bread and fight for hunger.
This sequel to the first Hunger Games film is better than the first one and it has more commercial entertainment, thus keeping you betrothed till the end.
The introductions about the players in the games almost feel like liberation of the future fight for bread, even despite the fact that so many lives are at stake.
Highlights of the war challenges are a poisonous fog, rampage of wild baboons, and thunder of blood downpour. Also the opponent comprehension to identify the game ambiguity is done very smartly.
Jennifer Lawrence yet again delivers a fearsome performance with strength in the hazardous world of hunger games
.
Costume designer Trish Summerville in fact has given immense scope to the wedding dress, transforming Katniss to a Cleopatra fashion era.
Worth watching.
CAST.
Directed
by
|
Francis Lawrence
|
Produced
by
|
|
Screenplay
by
|
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Based
on
|
Catching Fire
by Suzanne Collins |
Starring
|
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Music
by
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James Newton Howard
|
Cinematography
|
Jo
Willems
|
Editing
by
|
Alan
Edward Bell
|
Studio
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Color Force
|
