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Matt Vs. Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss Everdeen in the sequel to 2012's Hunger Games, Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Back in 2012, I read the Hunger Games Trilogy and liked most of it except the latter portions of the final book Mockingjay. I was excited to see the original Hunger Games and I believe it was fairly faithful to the book and as a bonus, got to see the ever lovely Jennifer Lawrence. The Hunger Games spawned cultural phenomenon on its way to its billion dollar box office gross. Now a year and a half later, the sequel is trying to capture the same spark.  Is this girl still fire?

Catching Fire begins showing a Katniss that has clearly been traumatized by the events of the 74th Hunger Games. As she struggles to return to her regular life in District 12, she discovers that even for victors there is no going back. While she still has a strong connection to her family, her relationships with Gale and Peeta have suffered. Elsewhere Katniss and Peeta's gamble to end the last the previous Games has caused rumblings of revolution in the other districts controlled in the Capital. In order to prevent this, President Snow tries to manipulate Katniss by forcing her to maintain the image of a woman madly in love with Peeta to turn her from a rallying point for dissidents to an object of their hate. Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch are forced on a victory tour of all the in order to ruin  Katniss' image and quell the masses. When the pressure becomes too much, she pressures Gale  to escape District 12 and live on their own but Gale dismisses the idea once he hears that rebellion is in the air. Katniss and Haymich help save Gale's life from the increasingly brutal authorities and are shocked by news of the next Hunger Games. The government in the Capital has determined  the all previous victors are threats to regime and decides to eliminate them by announcing  that the 75th Hunger Games will feature only previous years victors.  Now Katniss and Peeta must survive another round of Games while facing people more dangerous and cunning that they can imagine and as broken as themselves.

I enjoyed the Hunger Games: Catching Fire and feels like it ups the ante in many ways quite similar to the second Hobbit film. It matched my recollections from the book nearly perfectly however there were some gaping holes. In the book version Katniss encounters survivors from District 13 while hunting in the woods, foreshadowing the events in the final book. This part is absent in the movie and I feel that there was a better level of characterization of the new tributes that was missing in the film. The effects and  designs were inspired and seemed to pop out of the screens. My only criticism of the trilogy in general would be that I dislike the character of Peeta as I feel that he doesn't bring anything to the table and isn't that interesting. Overall Hunger Games: Catching Fire is a serviceable sequel to the first film and should please fans of the series.

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