This dress makes her butt look fat!
Jennifer Lawrence was so terrific in Winter’s Bone…and now the 23-year-old is an Oscar winner (for the horrible Silver Linings Playbook). She’s certainly enjoyable to watch on screen. Just not sure a 2 ½ hour movie (the dreaded middle film of a trilogy), is the way you want to spend this weekend.
The main problem with Catching Fire is that the themes of courage and sacrifice were covered in the first movie.
When we see old men beaten up for showing their support of Katniss Everdeen, we feel like that was covered before. It’s one big recycle of the first film!
The story has Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) doing a tour of the various districts, promoting their romance and the Games. President Snow (the always sinister Donald Sutherland) shows up at her house and threatens her. He realizes Katniss doesn’t really love Peeta, but wants her to put on a convincing show. What I couldn’t figure out is…if Snow is so worried about an uprising, or the tributes saying the wrong thing – why can’t he show the various interviews and tours on tape delay? This is the future, with all these great futuristic things – yet they don’t possess the ability to edit tape or show things on delay?
The cast is beefed up with some incredible actors – the always welcome kookiness of Amanda Plummer; Jeffrey Wright as a genius (which means his make-up merely requires him wearing a pair of glasses). I was perplexed as to why, when each is allowed to bring their weapon of choice, he went with a long spool of copper wire.
Oh, and Philip Seymour Hoffman joins the crew as President Snow’s partner in crime.
I enjoyed the direction the romance/friendship went with Katniss and Peeta. The various stops they make at the districts were well-written, too.
I’m not sure why the two screenwriters couldn’t give some funny lines to Stanley Tucci and Elisabeth Banks – both characters that lend themselves to having some comic relief other than the wacky outfits they wear (Tucci’s purple eyebrows would make Prince jealous).
Woody Harrelson’s character as the drunken mentor didn’t work for me in the first one. He’s a little better this time around.
I always complain about the hours of pre-show garbage before the actual Super Bowl starts. Well, this movie went an hour and a half before the actual Hunger Games started! The Games this time around is called the third Quarter Quell, which means previous victors are pitted against each other. Any guesses on who gets picked from District 12? You’ll have a lot less enjoyment watching Survivor, when you see these folks surviving baboon attacks, poisonous fog, blood rain you could drown in, and the occasional lightning strikes.
This movie is exactly why I don’t invest my time in TV shows that everyone praises. I don’t see the point of spending years (or an entire weekend) watching Lost or Breaking Bad – for good acting, but stories that didn’t need to be so long. When it’s all said and done, despite the fact that I was never bored watching this movie, I felt like it was a big waste of time.
It gets 2 stars out of 5.
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