The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (7/10)

With all the hype around it, I too got excited for it and have been anticipating it.

One unfortunate thing happened to it when it got here was that the subtitles were way too big in the size that when there were too much dialogue, the text took up the whole bottom half of the screen. It was just ridiculous. Where is the quality control?

However, this time under a new director, Francis Lawrence, the direction for the movie and its progression were much clearer than the predecessor's.

And a strange thing that happened to me was that, I really disliked Josh Hutcherson and his take on the character in the first one. But as if magic, the very first time he started speaking, it's like everything fell into place and everything made sense coming out of his mouth and acting. I immediately liked him and he was probably the only character that I could relate to.

And that says it all for the rest of the characters and this whole story. I just couldn't get into this world of Hunger Games. I felt very indifferent when it came to the characters and wasn't rooting for anyone. I just couldn't bring myself to care even when all the actors involved were great in their performances.

I particularly enjoyed Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks, whom I still remember fondly from the first one. And also with the addition of Philip Seymour Hoffman added even more great acting.

But as a whole and as a movie, it was really very well done. And the storytelling too was great. The pacing in the first half could have been just a tad faster but I enjoyed this more than the first one.

And I would have given a slightly higher score but again, it's the whole concept of The Hunger Games that I just couldn't relate to. To me, the games themselves were already flawed. The concept was supposed to pit players against one another and in the end, only one will survive. But when they introduced external factors like animals and weather that could kill the players as well, that has lost me completely.

What if one of the external factor wiped out everyone at the same time? Then there's no winner? But the point of the game was to have one winner. Then what?

Maybe the book does a better job explaining it. But herein lies the other complaint I have about these movies, if I have never read the book, there will always be things I don't understand. Like how did Katniss know to get to the beach so that the baboons wouldn't follow them? I don't get it.