Catching Fire

It's been a long wait for the second part of the Hunger Games trilogy and a slightly fraught one, as we weren't sure we would be able to take Arya to see it (babe-in-arms tickets are only allowed up to the 12A certificate), but in the end we went as a family. I think we're going to have to start making alternative arrangements, however, as Arya is now alert enough that the moving images keep her awake long enough to then be upset by the loud noises, and especially the baboons.

More than half of this movie does not take place in the arena of the Games themselves. The Hunger Games was a movie about the Hunger Games, while Catching Fire deals more deeply with the issues surrounding them. We open with a good hour showing the growing dissent and oppression within the Districts following Katniss's act of defiance. We see Katniss try to calm things down under the threat of her family's death, and the tension between fear and rage which alternately drive the characters to toe the line and rage against the machine.

This section is grim, but excellently done, and as before the contrast between the Districts and the Capitol are superbly played, not just in the acting and the dialogue, but in the superb set and costume design.

The second section is the announcement of the Quarter Quell and the Reaping of the former Victors. The absolute star here is Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, transforming her vacuous Hunger Games persona through a few vocal inflections and key character moments. The choking pain as she goes through the same Reaping routine as in the first movie; her seemingly trivial suggestion that the 'boys' should have tokens to match the 'girls', which evolves into a genuine show of solidarity. Also of note are Jena Malone's Johanna Mason and Lenny Kravitz returning for Cinna's final act, which he telegraphs perfectly and understatedly.

Malone gets about ten minutes of screen time to establish Mason as cunning, bold and angry as hell, set her up as an antagonist, an unlikely ally, and then manage an apparent heel-turn and a reversal; that it works is a tribute to the actress and the filmmakers.

Watch me gush!

And this is not to say that the core players are slacking. Jennifer Lawrence continues to get Katniss just right; courageous and principled, but also devoted to protecting her family above some high ideal and, in many ways, a spiky, suspicious, unlikable individual. Her flaws are played as well as her strengths, meaning that she remains the complex, sympathetic character from the books instead of a stock 'strong' heroine. Josh Hutcherson continue to provide what would conventionally be the feminine touch as Peeta; wise, intuitive and empathic, and driven by love and not a sense of duty. Veteran players Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman provide stalwart support, with Sutherland and Hoffman carrying a lot of the exposition scenes with aplomb and Harrelson a joy as the surly, erratic Haymitch.

The final section of the film is the Quarter Quell itself, and this is almost an afterthought. With the arena driving against the tributes, most of the deaths are offscreen, with just enough shown to remember that, even if most of the fighters in this Games aren't children anymore, the Hunger Games are still obscene.

So, yeah, I loved the hell out of this movie, even the bits I had to watch walking up and down the ramp trying to get the baby to sleep because it scared her with its shrieking monkeys.