Monday, December 16, 2013

Hunger Games: Catching Fire


It’s the future and things are pretty weird. The country of Panem is holding its annual snuff fest known as the Hunger Games, a nationwide television competition in which representatives from around the country fight to the death for fame and prizes. This bloodletting, with the sons and daughters from the various districts, we’re told, is the method by which a harsh, corrupt regime pacifies the masses and helps them forget that their everyday life isn’t all rosy. If only Stalin had known…

Each competition has one winner whose family gets to live in concrete splendor while he or she lives out his or her years as an ambassador of good will for the system. In the first film, The Hunger Games, all this is set up and then promptly violated. Two winners are announced and they immediately become poster children for a well-hidden insurgency that has so far accomplished only a whistled theme song and secret handshake. All this is done with a cast decked out in far out clothing designs that must have been extracted from the deepest recesses of Lady Gaga’s mind.

Nasty government and worse fashions continue in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the second installment of this Tween-centric  franchise. Things are really tough for the working masses that, having the leisure to wander verdant meadows, have to return to dilapidated early 20th century industrial sites. Is there no justice? Katniss Everdeen, the previous year’s co-winner is reluctant to fulfill her role as spokes-killer for the regime. She’s too busy with a love triangle involving her hunky boyfriend and the half-a-head shorter guy she shared the big prize with in the first outing. As the games begin, a fourth leg of this love triangle gets added and, well, how's a girl to choose when she's the also got to be the face of counter-insurgency?

I didn't mind the first film so much. Once the game started it was somewhat interesting. There are some serious flaws to the premise and the role Katniss plays in the proceedings, but fans of the book seem to know more than I do, so what does my opinion matter? If you love the books, you’ll love this movie. If you haven’t read them, like me, you’ll be sitting in the theater twisting your head the way a puppy does when he hears his master’s voice on the telephone.

One thing this series has going for it is Jennifer Lawrence who is best actress of her young generation already with an Oscar and, apparently, more on the way. Donald Sutherland, the president of this slanted republic, is as usual more interesting than anything around him. Few actors can communicate subtext as he does. You always feel he’s working on a grander, hidden strategy that, I fear, simply isn't in the story.

A welcome addition, or so I thought, was Philip Seymour Hoffman as the game master, but his character is detached to the point of dullness. It’s funny that in a film in which stylists are elevated to the level of High Lama and outrageous costumes come and go with every scene, Philip Seymour Hoffman essentially wears the same costume he has used in his last six movies.

This is the sort of movie you can pop in for the kids while the adults prepare the holiday dinner, especially if they’re too old for Jim Carrey’s Grinch. There are some nice special effects and some relatively good acting and for that I give The Hunger Games: Catching Fire two out of two Wilders for the fans and zero out two for the rest of us.


   


This week's Overlooked Film of Significance:  If we're going to discuss post-apocalyptic visions, few are better than my favorite scifi movie of all  time, A Boy and His Dog. The film version of Harlan Ellison's masterpiece features no trying love triangles, no flashy clothing or special effects, just a great story about how things will likely go down when the shit hits the fan.

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