The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

[ChitHappens]

I could not help but be disappointed.

The build to the actual games was really good, but then the game started and barely any action. I understand it was all a plan to put an end to the madness but still. It was a super let down. The ending altogether was a let down

Great to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

[YRBB]

Saw it today. I thought it was superb. I agree with you about all the build up to the games, although I completely disagree regarding the games. I don't know if I would classify a whole hour of the movie spent on the games as barely any action. They did what was in the book and I thought it was plenty. The gas, the monkeys, the water, the sudden attack, the tree. And you didn't like the ending!?! One of the best cliffhangers, ever!

[quartermainefan]

How was the whipping scene? Apparently Liam H actually was whipped for three days straight, not staged whipped.

[Mr. Vixen]

This movie was fantastic.

[All My Shadows]

The Games really aren't the focal point of Catching Fire, so the movie reflecting that is a good thing, IMO. This one's more about the uprising/politics/plotting than the action of the Games. I'm still in the book, and I have a little over 100 pages to go, and the Games still haven't started.

[JackPeyton]

I'm really curious to see how they pull of the next one.

It read as basically a character driven suspense novel to me. So dramatic, so... Idk... Horror-esq.

[DRW50]

I wonder if the overhype, or the mixed/negative view I've seen of the first film, hurt their box office.

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/lionsgate-shares-slide-as-box-office-falls-short-of-sky-high-expectations-1200883030/

[All My Shadows]

I saw it today and loved it, of course. The only downside is that I'm now officially obsessed with JH.

[EricMontreal22]

I understand that, although that's really the book's problem (I haven't seen the film yet.) In the first book I think the games take up 2/3s. In the second novel they barely take up 1/3 (which, in terms of the books, works because really reading more about the games gets pretty repetitive.) Collins was actually smart that way--I remember when I heard they would be returning to the games again it felt like one of those series where each book essentially is a rewrite of the first book. But, I can get that in film people might want more action.

[ChitHappens]

I didn't read the books (very seldom to I read fiction). I happened upon the first film sort of by accident, and by accident, I went into the theater while waiting for another movie to start. I was not crazy about the film, but it was ok. Because I don't follow the books, I was one person who needed more action once the games begun.

[EricMontreal22]

That's the only negative take I've read about the box office -- and sorta shows how insane film budgets and box office needs are now. The first film I thought was received by fans and critics more positively than negatively with some mixed takes (Metacritic has it at 67% which is fairly high for a mainstream film and this one has better reviews.) The first franchise film opened really big too, whereas often with these big franchises the first one doesn't do as well and then the numbers blow up with the second one -- they had less room to grow here...

As for the article mentioning hoping for a franchise with Divergent... I think there's a reason why so many of these successful book YA novels fail as movies (everything from The Golden Compass which I never watched, but as a book I thought was one of the best YA fantasy series in a long time, to Percy whatshisname both being compared to Potter, to the huge flop this summer of The Mortal Instruments which they hoped would be a new Hunger Games.) And the reason is MOST of these Hunger Games/Twilight type trilogies that do so well as books simply make no impact with anyone older than young high school students.

Don't get me wrong. I do think Hunger Games are well written genre fiction (but not much more, and they obviously do fit a formula) and I despise Twilight and am sorta mixed on Harry Potter (Probably if I was 5 or so years younger and had read them when they came out I'd feel differently.) But all of those series, for whatever reason managed to get a lot of 16+ fans. I don't know any 20 or 30 somethings who have read The Mortal Instruments, or Divergent for that matter, whereas for good or bad, I do know a ton of people int hat age range and older who have read Potter, Hunger Games and, ugh, Twilight.. So I kinda predict Divergent will flop.

[EricMontreal22]

I admit, I tend to get bored with long action scenes--in books and movies, so that doesn't bug me (even the cliched love triangle soapy aspects of Hunger Games interest me more.) So I completely get where you're coming from, and your complaints sound valid. Hunger Games is one of the first film franchises in a while where I HAD read the books before, so I come from it from a different perspective (I somehow never read Lord of the Rings -- and had only read the first Harry Potter though I saw all of the films for them.)

[ChitHappens]

Did you watch The Avengers? If yes, what did you think of the last 40 minutes? It was nothing but action, and I watched it on almost every night for 3 weeks straight on my Ipad before I went to sleep. It wasn't just action, it was good action appropriate to the plot. I think I may go home and watch it while on the exercise bike now.

[EricMontreal22]

You have a weird way of falling asleep

Yes, of course I saw it. I was a big Marvel kid growing up (though the only ones I was really devoted to were X-Men, even with all the 10+ title spin offs and cross overs) and Daredevil, never the Avengers characters as much. But still, I give all their movies a chance. I really really liked it, but didn't love it like most of the world.

I did find the final battle a BIT too long, but for the most part I thought they did a good job of still mixing the character moments with the action and I was never bored. I admit though, I was bored with the final battle (I swear it was over an hour) in either the second or third Lord of the Rings.

Even as a kid reading the classic X-Men comics--a comic book that at its peak in the 80s was known, and sometimes mocked for being as much a soap opera as a comic--I would sometimes get annoyed at the fact every episode wasted five or so of its 20 pages on some sort of fight.

(And actually I largely liked all the action/horror stuff in the first Hunger Games movie, and more so in the book--the shaky cam work in the first movie -- dunno about this new one--wore me out.)

[Skin]

Hunger Games isn't the Avengers (and I don't think it's supposed to be in that vein). I would say more or less the Hunger Games is more about a moral tale to be wary of your government. I don't even think the characters are really as fleshed out like those comic book heroes in the Avengers are, so I think it would be hard to really have the Games live up to what is essentially 30+ years of comic book history and another 5-10 films to draw from in terms of back story that lifted the Avengers up to what it became.

Katniss is really the focal storyteller of the series, and she isn't all that interesting by herself. She works because of the action that surrounds her character is interesting. Peeta and Gale have even less focus than she does, so there really isn't a larger than life character in the series who brings everything together and breaks the mold of the trilogy. The central focus of the Hunger Games is the Capitol, it's dictation and the following rebellion that took 75 years to manifest in the form of a resistance. Katniss is the backdrop for those actions to take hold. She by herself doesn't really start it, she just clicks everything in place.

If one is looking for character study, this isn't it, nor is it an action film primarily. I think HG does tell an interesting story. There just isn't much there once it's over. It's not a world encompassing film like Harry Potter in that aspect.