It
was hard to get into Catching Fire. On
the positive side, it was faithful to its source material. However, the flaw with that is that the
book’s first half was never interesting to begin with; the adaptation onto the
big screen sapped what little interesting thing it had and distilled it into a
bland first hour and twenty minutes. The concept of the movie was still great, in
that the Hunger Games Quarter Quell happened; it was a great way to get the
main characters back into the spotlight.
During the games, the political intensity and suspicions were toned
down. It would have been awesome if the
film could have conveyed the same extreme tension felt in the book in that you
do not know who to trust, why tributes are sacrificing themselves and the clockwork
theme of the arena. Even during the
climax of the games, it didn’t truly captivate your attention. It felt as if the film didn’t have enough
time to build the suspense and revelation properly as the ending did not have
as big an impact as it should have. It
ends in a cliffhanger, teasing you with what is to come and on the whole, it is
an enjoyable film.