Review of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) by Drew C — 23 Nov 2014

After watching The Hunger Games, I was very excited to see the sequel. What shocked me, was that Gary Ross and the writers of the first one are not going to be involved the with second movie, except for the author of the book but she only going to be the executive producer of Catching Fire instead of the writer.

Francis Lawrence replaced Gary Ross as the director which got people worried that he might not be skilled enough to make it, which I kind of thought that too. But what made me forgive that, is that Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt, changed his name as Michael DeBruyn, are the writers for the movie which I thought were excellent choices.

After seeing the movie, I was right, but also surprised that it's better than the first movie. The shaky cam is gone which some people had a problem with the first film. The acting is better, and I thought it couldn't get any better.

Jennifer Lawrence is great in this, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is the right choice as Plutarch Heavensbee and could not think of someone better for the character. It's smart, it's more deeper for thought provoking scenes, and the satire for national TV is still great.

The highlight of the movie for me, is Jena Malone as Johanna Mason. She's funny, and it looks like she's having fun for her role. The new characters are memorable, and the movie pulls no strings, like the first film that feels like it's playing it safe.

It's exciting to watch from beginning to end in this long movie, and it's the best Hunger Games movie I seen so far.