The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

5 of 6 viewers "Liked" "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013, USA)

Here's what the citizens of the Overlook Theatre had to say:

Book Wyrm - "This movie surpassed my expectations by far. Leaps and bounds over the 1st one,catching fire was very close to perfect for me. I'm sure having Suzanne Collins as an exec producer helped." - 4 1/2 Stars

The Great Hornito - "I liked the first film because of the action and the story was new to me. The second movie was a disappointment because it used the same tricks and scenes as the first but didn't have as much action. I also didn't have enough emotion invested in any of the characters to care about what happened to them. It seemed like there was more whining and crying then good action also Peeta almost dying every 5 min got annoying. The title of this flick should have been called "Catching Tears"." - 2 Stars

Lord Battle - "Johanna's a badass character and if I made this film she would have escaped from the dome and survived in the woods as a barbarian queen. Years later one of her wives is killed and she leads her savage army against the boring government and the earth drinks it's fill of their blood!" - 3 Stars

Johnny Ocelot - "Survival in the dystopian world again, it was exciting with a cool new arena scheme but I felt it was a little long." - 3 1/2 Stars

Huntress - "Little differences managed to make a pretty different movie out of the same idea. I'm glad it wasn't super preachy." - 3 Stars

Ice Giant - "Much better cast than the first one although they removed some small parts that would of fit and made the movie much better." - 4 Stars

The Overlook Theatre Final Rating*

Because this was my personal favorite book in the Hunger Games series, and because I'm one of those people who lives for the midnight premiere, book to movie adaptations, going to see this movie was pretty much a guaranteed thing. I went into Catching Fire not wanting to have such high expectations because of the reputation of book to movie adaptations, but I can't deny that I really had my hopes set on this being a good film. Luckily for me, that was the case as this movie totally lived up to and blew away some of my expectations. Of course, because it was my favorite book from the series I had to sit in the theater and nitpick every little thing that wasn't in the book or was cut out, but disregarding some minor pieces didn't really ruin the experience for me. I noticed as I was watching the credits that they made Suzanne Collins, the author of the Hunger Games Trilogy, an executive producer, and I totally believe that that is the reason as to why this movie was as good as I believe it to be.

Of course, I am coming from a totally biased opinion as I am a teenage girl who loves dumb young adult novels like these ones (and yes I can say that includes the Twilight Saga) and so I was really interested in hearing what some of the other citizens had to say about the film. Of course they are all in a totally different demographic, movie and age wise, than I am, so that probably accounted for something too. But I have to say that every citizen had very valid arguments for each of their critiques. Lord Battle brought up how some of the things seemed to come up out of the blue, such as *SPOILER* how Plutarch was on the side of the rebels, or how Prim became such an experienced healer. I didn't really pay much mind to these things because I have read this book more times than I would like to admit, but looking back on it, I definitely think not expanding on the backstory for certain things could have hurt this film a lot.

All in all, there is a lot more I could say about Catching Fire, but Lord Battle is bugging me to go down and watch another screener with him as payment for dragging him to come and see this with me, and I feel like I have written too much already. The overall feel of the movie, the improved acting, and the very nice adaptation definitely made this movie a hit to me. I look forward to dragging the rest of my friends to come and watch it with me again!

- Book Wyrm

I'm going to start letting citizens wrap up films that they screen (or love). I obviously let Book Wyrm take the lead on this film as she dragged us out to the theater. All I had to say about this film is what I wrote above, I liked the character Johanna but I'd rather see her as a barbarian queen... Oh and I will always pick and make the poster!

- Lord Battle

*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not effect the rating.