The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

[MBMoreno]

Is it me, or is this one of the best movies that have come out in the last ten years or so? Perhaps I was bit off guard, cause of the shitty movies that come out this days, everything is so "meh", even the good ones. I left the theater wanting to see it again asap. No other movie put me this way since the LOTR trilogy, and that includes some well acclaimed movies.

Is it just Jennifer Lawrence having an effect on me????


I need to see this movie discussed by other people, thought I'd start here
Begin

 

[Captain Butterscotch]

My wife? Ah yes, she is a fine actress indeed.

 

[Tyler]

My wife? Ah yes, she is a fine actress indeed.

Hold up, shes been cheating on me?

 

[MFB]

Back the fvck up fools, I was here first

But seriously, J-Law (yeah, I SAID IT) is the only good thing to come out of those movie. I saw the first one and it was laughably bad (Peeta's "camoflague") but I've liked her acting and her moreso as a person. Watching her do interviews, god she's so casual and just un-filtered it's refreshing to see and I can only hope she keeps it up.

 

[MBMoreno]

Back the fvck up fools, I was here first

But seriously, J-Law (yeah, I SAID IT) is the only good thing to come out of those movie. I saw the first one and it was laughably bad (Peeta's "camoflague") but I've liked her acting and her moreso as a person. Watching her do interviews, god she's so casual and just un-filtered it's refreshing to see and I can only hope she keeps it up.

Have you seen the second movie? The way it expands on the first is phenomenal. I was kinda "meh" about the first one as well, not anymore

BTW, this thread is transforming in an adoration to Jennifer, lets stay on topic folks!

 

[Tyler]

Agreed. I read the books before the movies and the first one was awful and literally made me lose hope for the rest of the series. It just felt so childish( or maybe im just some psycho that loves seeing bloody action). Regardless, the second movie absolutely restored my hope in them. It definitely was more suited towards older audiences and wasnt dumbed down as much as I had thought it was going to be

 

[MFB]

I honestly have zero intention of giving any of my money to that franchise. I'll wait till it's on Netflix so I can get super trashed while ribbing on it as the people who so desperately hunger for food find themselves slowly turning into New Jersey residents via spray-on tans and overly tacky clothes.

 

[MBMoreno]

I honestly have zero intention of giving any of my money to that franchise. I'll wait till it's on Netflix so I can get super trashed while ribbing on it as the people who so desperately hunger for food find themselves slowly turning into New Jersey residents via spray-on tans and overly tacky clothes.

I know what you mean. I stayed out of cinemas ever since I went to see The Hobbit in 2012. It was always a business, but it is getting more and more apparent in the movies themselves

 

[Xaios]

I'd hesitate to call it a "great" movie, but it was certainly more enjoyable than the first Hunger Games.

 

[Daf57]

Haven't been able to get out to see it yet!

I'm looking forward to it - I really enjoyed the books and the first movie!

 

[Toxic Dover]

I only saw the first Hunger Games about a month or so ago, then Catching Fire about a week and a half ago... I loved them both. So much in fact, that over the past 8 days or so I've read both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and that's saying a LOT for me, I don't read at all, haha. Going to start on Mockingjay tomorrow...

Catching Fire did have a much more "geared towards older audience" feel than the first one, but honestly I think it goes well with the books (the change of "mood" between the first movie and the second). Katniss has a whole different attitude going into the Games in the second book as opposed to her almost timid, terrified attitude in the first one... Jennifer Lawrence played that excellently, I think.

 

[Black_Sheep]

I tried watching the first one with my gf but I fell asleep.

 

[Xaios]

As much as I enjoyed this movie (and I *did* enjoy it much more than the first), there are a couple glaring problems with it. The first is an issue with the story, namely the fact that President Snow is just ridiculous, mincing, moustache-twirling evil with all the subtlety of a cinderblock to the head. The second, however, is more a problem with the movie itself. As soon as you see Philip Seymour Hoffman, you just know that his character isn't what he seems, because he's freaking Philip Seymour Hoffman. He's a great actor, but his style is the living embodiment of smugness sometimes, and that fact colored his character way too much.

 

[sage]

As with the first film, I saw it on the day of release. I loved the books (read them the year before the movies were released. Hipster Kitty and all that) and have been relatively happy with the films' treatment of them as a whole.

However, I had a problem with the omission of Peeta and Katniss watching Haymitch's victory in the previous Quarter Quell as I thought it added a lot to the story. Also felt like they'd left out much of the abuse and whoring out of the victors that was in the book. The books were written for an adolescent audience and I thought that the concepts could have been transferred to film without garnering an R rating. But a movie can only be so long, I guess. I understand that they're making Mockingjay into two films, which makes sense. There is a lot of ground to cover there. The same could have been done with Catching Fire, but I reckon we would have had a whole movie with no Games and a whole movie of Games and everyone would have hated Part 1. I did think that the execution of the Arena for the 75th Games was absolutely stellar. It was almost exactly like I imagined it and watching it in IMAX where the screen opened up as they entered the Arena was mindblowing.

So, yeah. I'm a total 40-year-old Hunger Games fanboy. I really feel like these movies will be to my kids (who are 8 and 11 and are huge fans and archers) what Star Wars is to me and what LoTR and Harry Potter are to people in their early 20s. The books are incredibly well written for teen fiction and, while kind of glib and obvious, deal well with concepts of social justice in the way that Sci-Fi is supposed to in the great tradition of Asimov, Atwood, Bradbury, and Herbert.

 

[MBMoreno]

That part of showing Haymitch's victory is true, and while they could've explored so much more about that and the "victor's celebration", I think they did it just enough - you can clearly understand why Haymitch is such a drunk and the way he acts towards the tributes at first

Thank you for the review

 

[Drusas]

I liked Hunger Games better when it was called The Running Man and written by Stephen King.

 

[MBMoreno]

I liked Hunger Games better when it was called The Running Man and written by Stephen King.

Stephen King himself has said The Hunger Games are among the best books of recent years

 

[Alex Kenivel]

I thought it was pretty good. It's got me reading Mocking Jay, and I hate reading! I don't really like going out and seeing movies, I'd rather watch it for free when it comes out on some rippable media, or Netflix. Saw Catching Fire on Christmas with family because thats what they wated to do. Paying for a movie to me is a joke. Look at all the top grossing films of the past five years. Most of them are remakes of books or sequels. Everything is a remix.

 

[wankerness]

I liked Hunger Games better when it was called The Running Man and written by Stephen King.

Very little similarity there dawg, it has more in common with the schwarzenegger movie than the book and that was one of the most unfaithful adaptations ever

 

[wankerness]

I watched this yesterday, it was pretty good. I felt like the actual games never got as intense as I was hoping they would, there are barely any deaths after the cornucopia scene. I also was kind of confused by the implications of the scene at the end with PSH but I dunno. It was a solid movie, it looked good, I love Jennifer Lawrence in everything other than House at the End of the Street, etc.

Everyone's been going on about how much better it was than the first movie, but I don't know if that was the case. I don't remember the first very well (i remember liking it alright, but I watched a crappy theater rip), but I do remember the cornucopia scene in that one was really nasty and I felt like this one never had anything that measured up to that. I'll rewatch it sometime. The CGI baboons were better than the CGI dog monsters, I'll give it that.