So I'm a little disappointed in myself since my review came in later than I wanted. I usually start working on my movie reviews the minute I get home from the premiere but when I got home- my mom's home not our home, the mouse was acting up and this was already at 1:00 AM so I just decided to go to sleep and work on the review the next day - so here I am now busy typing away a movie review to a movie I really enjoyed. :)
Just some personal thoughts before diving right in to the movie review. You can jump right in at the Movie Review below :P
I have been going to movie premieres for some time now so I pretty much know what happens. So imagine my surprise when I saw the large number of people lined up to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire it was unlike any other movie premiere I have ever attended and there were at least 3 cinemas having the premieres and all of them had long lines! Talk about being the anticipated movie of the year!
The firsts didn't stop there though since another first encounter for a movie premiere was the fact that ALL phones and gadgets with cameras were collected before the movie. While I know and understand that this was all for the fight against piracy it was a pain in the ass.
Can you imagine collecting every phone and gadget in a theater full of people? Yeah you do the math, especially in this day and age where everyone has at least one cellphone or gadget. Collecting the phones may not have been much of a problem but everyone claiming their phones after the movie all at the same time - well that's another story.
And since I didn't have a watch I couldn't tell what time it is or update my mom and my husband how I was doing, I was with my baby brother for the movie so my mom really wanted updates. We came in the movie house around 7:00PM and left at past 11:50PM. It was an inconvenience but you know what? The movie really made up for it and all of that was worth it in the end :P
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Me at around 12:00 AM with our movie premiere tickets. :P |
On to the movie review!
So for everyone's reference I actually read the books - the whole trilogy about three years ago so I pretty much had an idea of what the story was about. Now even if I have read the books and am a fan of the franchise I was not going to go 'Oh it was a great movie!' blindly since I actually did not enjoy (the first movie) - Hunger Games last year. I was really disappointed at the last part in the movie since it failed to capture the hanging by a moment, nail biter ending in the book. With that being said I can critically say that the second installment Catching Fire - was AMAZING!
From the beginning of the movie until the end you find yourself in an emotional and political arena (pun intended) where you have to deal with the dynamic of a rebellion unfolding and of course all the emotional baggage that the characters carry.
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The Odds are never in your favor. Scene from Catching Fire. |
When The Hunger Games came out last year I had to roll my eyes so many times and bite my tongue since people thought the movie was all about a battle to the death of children (which is why it was compared a lot to Battle Royale) when in fact the whole battle to the death was just the tip of the ice burg and that the story actually deals with a more complicated political dynamic. I was glad that this was touched on in the second movie and I was really glad that they included (SPOILER ALERT) the scene in the Presidential Ball where Peeta is offered a purple elixir to drink so that he can throw up what he ate - just so he can eat some more and try everything was very important to me at least and I really felt strongly about this scene (also when I read it in the book) because as Peeta put it: "People in District 12 have nothing to eat while in the Capitol people where gorging themselves sick from eating too much food" and surprisingly this is something that we don't just read in books and watch in movies because it actually happens in real life!
Some people have so much and too much while others have nothing at all. I was really glad that they included this scene in the movie, although it was really short it was really powerful for me and really spoke a hundred words. I hope that the people who come to watch the movie catch it also. It's really important to understand especially to get an idea of what the rebellion is all about.
Amazing cast and amazing acting
In case you guys didn't know Jennifer Lawrence is actually an Academy Award Winner for her role as Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings Playbook. She isn't just some actress known for being the lead in a well known franchise but she also has the acting chops to back it up.Which is a good thing since the character of Katniss Everdeen is very complicated as she becomes the reluctant symbol of a rebellion and is torn between the love of a long time friend and the love of a fellow tribute. Some things that people don't realize or maybe forget is that unlike the Careers who spend their lives training and wanting to be part of The Hunger Games and winning at all cost, Katniss is a great archer and hunter because she had to be, she had to learn how to hunt in order to provide food for her family. She didn't pick up the bow and arrow to learn how to make pin cushions out of other tributes but she picked it up (and became good at it) so her family can eat. There is a lot of ugly crying and ugly shouting that Katniss does throughout the movie but Jennifer Lawrence delivers it in a convincing way and that is real acting.
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Smile for the cameras. Oddly enough the victors' celebrity status and Katniss and Peeta's on-screen romance so that people would 'forget' the real problems is eerily familiar to how we follow and poke into the lives of real celebrities for our own pleasure and amusement.
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