Straight after this one finished on Saturday night, back row, imax, the girl to my right - a stranger - turned around to me and exclaimed "how good was that!" and I completely agreed - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was very satisfying.
Having read the books is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it's meant that I've been primed to enjoy the films, but on the other it removes some of the impact of the turns and twists, many of which weren't at all predictable on the first pass. But in any case, like with the books, the first one was good, but the second improves on it - it hits harder on the ethical responsibilities and consequences of revolution and of Katniss's choices as well as the trauma of her experiences, and it stays impressively tough-minded in its treatment of the whole subject matter while also delivering an unflagging, enveloping piece of entertainment through the whole of its nearly 2 1/2 hours...both V for Vendetta and Children of Men [*] seem reasonable comparisons, though maybe the most impressive thing about the Hunger Games films is that, actually, they don't seem to fit strongly into any existing genre, such that it's the events of the story story themselves - and, to a perhaps lesser extent, the characters and ideas - that are most striking.
(w/ Cass)
[*] Worth noting, re-reading what I thought about that latter straight after seeing it, that time and at least one subsequent viewing have significantly raised my opinion of it.
Having read the books is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, it's meant that I've been primed to enjoy the films, but on the other it removes some of the impact of the turns and twists, many of which weren't at all predictable on the first pass. But in any case, like with the books, the first one was good, but the second improves on it - it hits harder on the ethical responsibilities and consequences of revolution and of Katniss's choices as well as the trauma of her experiences, and it stays impressively tough-minded in its treatment of the whole subject matter while also delivering an unflagging, enveloping piece of entertainment through the whole of its nearly 2 1/2 hours...both V for Vendetta and Children of Men [*] seem reasonable comparisons, though maybe the most impressive thing about the Hunger Games films is that, actually, they don't seem to fit strongly into any existing genre, such that it's the events of the story story themselves - and, to a perhaps lesser extent, the characters and ideas - that are most striking.
(w/ Cass)
[*] Worth noting, re-reading what I thought about that latter straight after seeing it, that time and at least one subsequent viewing have significantly raised my opinion of it.
