Catching Fire: Movie Review

Plot

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) returns home safely after winning the 74th annual Hunger Games alongside her District partner Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Winning however means that they must turn around and leave their family and close friends behind, embarking on Hunger Games "Victory Tour" of each district one by one. Along the way, Katniss senses that there is some sort of rebellion simmering, but the Capitol itself is still in control as President Snow (Donald Sutherland) prepares for the next Hunger Games (75th, also known as the Third Quarter Quell), a competition that could possibly change Panem forever. - IMDB Preview

Everyone sees Katniss and Peeta as the star crossed lovers of district 12, but of course Gale (Liam Hemsworth) doesn't like this due to his feelings for Katniss. He instantly becomes jealous and can't hold back his feelings when seeing Katniss. He kisses her and walks away as she heads back to the winners homes for the time being to have an interview for the watchers of the Hunger Games. Her and Peeta both come out of their houses individually and slip on the ice and kiss whilst still being on the floor to show off their "district love" to the public. However there is one person who doesn't believe in their love. President Snow. He threatens Katniss after seeing her and Gale kiss into trying to make the love seem real, otherwise loved ones would face serious consequences, death. This puts a lot of pressure on her and she walks away, preparing for the district tour.

They start off by going to District 11 (previous home of Rue and Thresh) and try to gain the public's respect for the loss of the two tributes. Peeta offers them a lot of their earnings and Katniss manages to gain the respect of Rue's family and friends due to the situation that occurred in the actual Hunger Games itself. As she starts to gain their respect, the guards don't tolerate it and drag the two winners away, grabbing a man in the crowd at the same time and shooting him directly in the head, killing him, causing awful depression and tragedy. Katniss is horrified as she hears the bang during the same time as being dragged back inside.
She realises that what she may have said during her speech wasn't the best thing to say in front of the guards and President Snow watching from his home and instantly feels regret and despair. Because of this, they stick to a very strict and harsh script planned out for them for the rest of the districts. The rest of the districts of course don't like the things said and a massive destruction occurs.

Everything falls apart inch by inch and then you see Gale being whipped by a new guard in town who wasn't impressed with what was going on in his surroundings. Of course Katniss sees this and runs in his direction to protect him. President Snow once again doesn't like this. Then it goes on to the Hunger Games announcements.
As it's the 75th Hunger Games it's a quarter quell, the third one. President Snow thought he'd change this one up a little bit. All previous chosen victors of the Hunger Games who have survived would be reaped again. This automatically makes Katniss the chosen lady as she's the only one in district 12 to have survived the Hunger Games. However with the gentleman, there is Peeta and Haymitch (Woody Harrelson). Haymitch is chosen but Peeta volunteers in his place and doesn't let Haymitch have a say. They are against elite fighters, all that have won themselves before.

During training Katniss shows off her strengths extremely well from the beginning and her and Peeta gain many allies at the same time as they know it'll help in the arena. They look through all the tributes and figure out who the weaker ones are and who the stronger ones are. They come across a man named Finnick (Sam Claflin), who is an excellent fighter and instantly becomes friends with him and his district partner. They become friends with two other candidates from the same district and then they get ready to go into the real thing.

Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) as usual is their designer and when preparing Katniss gives her the legendary Mocking Jay pin, this time by hiding it in her sleeve. He gets her into the tube, with 10 seconds to go and then the guards appear and bash his head against the tube, then slowly take him away, just as Katniss is about to go out into the arena, leaving her screaming and in tears from what she's just witnessed. The tube then takes her out into a beach setting on the pedestal, surrounding her by water and the centre dome containing all the weapons and supplies. Many people die right from the beginning in a massive blood bath and instantly Peeta, Katniss and Finnick help each other in getting supplies and getting out of the area safely together.

Further on a mysterious lot of smoke/gas comes across Katniss and co in the middle of the forest area, Katniss goes out to it and puts her hand in. It slowly affects her and they all run away because it's poisonous gas. As Finnick's district partner is fairly old, she cannot run and so Finnick carries her away. Peeta gets badly poisoned and can no longer run any further. Katniss can't carry him as she isn't strong enough and so Finnick's partner runs into the gas, killing herself in place of the three left over, and they both carry Peeta together. They continue through the forest, fighting off all sorts of creatures and objects. They then come across some kind of forcefield and realise that the arena is in a dome. Peeta doesn't realise quickly enough and touches the forcefield, exploding him. Luckily Finnick manages to get his heart working again and they continue on.

Further on they meet up with their other two allies that they met from training and notice they are with another girl tribute, giving them an extra ally. They realise that after every hour, something new that's bad will happen and every night at midnight, a tree in the middle of the arena will be shot by lightning, setting off massive shocks and storms. One of Katniss' allies is a genius with forcefields and electricty and comes up with a plan to kill any tribute who approaches near the tree or in the way of the wire that they are gonna set up all across the arena. They start to spread the wire about and during the process some tributes catch Katniss and an ally and so the ally tricks them into thinking that she's hurting Katniss when really she is just distracting them away from her. They continue and when its all set up the wait till midnight. Sadly the plan doesn't work and the expert on electricity dies in the process. Katniss realises her strength, and attaches the wire to her crossbow and shoots an arrow with the electricity into the air. It reaches the top of the dome, destroying the entire forcefield and dome, also shutting down President Snow's machinery to check on them e.t.c. Katniss is then grabbed by a massive claw attached to a plane and they carry her up into the plane. She wakes up two days later by Gale and he explains what happened. She then gets up and goes into the other room to find Haymitch, Finnick and President Snow's assistant. They explain how the Hunger Games is over and that herself and Finnick are the only people left. President Snow's assistant mentions how that it was all a set-up to protect Katniss from Snow so that he couldn't kill her like he wanted to. Katniss asks Haymitch where Peeta is as he isn't in the room with them; he then mentions how they couldn't save him and they implied that he died in the arena. Katniss is furious and attacks Haymitch due to a promise they had made from the beginning that if Peeta had to go into the Hunger Games, Haymitch would do everything to keep Peeta alive.

It then ends on a cliffhanger of just Katniss in the plane and leaves you wondering whether or not Peeta actually did die or not. The answer will be revealed in the third film Mocking Jay.

I enjoyed every second of this film; normally second films never compare to the first ones, but this one is the complete opposite. I think it was an excellent sequel and really got the point across. All the actors and actresses played their roles extremely well and never failed to impress me or anyone in the cinema during watching the film. The film showed off the common theme of action with a lot of romance occurring at the same time with the occasional bit of humour just thrown in.

Even though I said it was an incredible film, I do believe they could have done somethings a little bit better. For example, the ending. I felt it was a little rushed. I was told previously that the film was going to be over 2 hours long; this wasn't the case. It was either 2 hours exactly or just under which I felt was a bad decision cos there was a lot more that they could've explained just to make it a bit more understanding for the viewer.

Overall I give this film a rating of 8/10.