Wednesday, November 27, 2013

A Negative Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Sucks


Anyway...

Truly, getting through the first two thirds of this movie is an exercise in resilience – I was having trouble staying awake. In fact, the cinematography and acting felt so lifeless and generic that I actually thought my date, who was quietly groaning and sighing throughout, displayed more talent than what I was seeing onscreen; that Catching Fire is receiving so much praise is even more ridiculous than Jennifer Lawrence winning over Emmanuelle Riva at the Oscars. So without any further asides:

There are elections. There is a train ride to the nation's capitol. Jennifer Lawrence sets her expensive dress on fire, but it doesn't actually burn through for whatever reason. Then Jennifer Lawrence rides in a chariot (also on fire) and then a few minutes later, the hunger games are off again. I was already feeling pretty bummed out that I spent money attending the movie, but even more insulting was the realization that as soon as the games actually began, a clever projectionist could have swapped out Catching Fire for the original Hunger Games movie and I would probably not have noticed. 

As the movie informs us, the 75th hunger games are such that every contestant is a hardened veteran, and yet, the action plays out exactly as it did in the first movie, with one deus ex machina after another. Some of the CGI is interesting, but at some point you have to wonder why Jennifer Lawrence's brilliant opponents willingly throw themselves at her in some of the stupidest ways manageable – the giant white dude without armor who only has melee weapons comes at her when she has the height advantage and is in the middle of the open; the nondescript girl whom Jennifer Lawrence shoots in the leg during the incipiency of the games elects to run down a narrow pathway, cognizant of Jennifer Lawrence's abilities as an archer; and maybe there was also something else during that clusterfuck of an action sequence that took place on the spinning island, but I couldn't tell, because the island was... well, spinning. It's this sort of Taken 2-esque fast-cut to fast-cut methodology that's rotting modern action movies from the inside out that ruins the viewer's sense of direction and proportions when trying to understand the action of the action scenes – all I could really make out were closeups of knees and shoulders. 

But let's ignore the action for a moment and consider how stupid the whole premise of the The Hunger Games world is – why are the hunger games the only thing anyone ever talks about? The government is shown to be inexorably rich. It's not as if all this wealth sprang up from the ground – so where is the industry? Where are the companies selling hunger games merchandise? Where are any of the businesses that would be necessary for such a government to exist? Instead of inserting even the slightest amount of believability into its world, Catching Fire completely ignores these issues and instead would have the viewer believe that despite the vast infrastructure of it all, society only ever needs to concern itself with the hunger games and that everything else will sort itself out. Sure, there is a brief mention of sponsors, but it's never talked about further or explained. Even fucking Twilight, which I had the misfortune of seeing/reading, was more fleshed out than Catching Fire. And the kicker is, that in knowing this apparent import of the games, the government still elects to shuttle the saviors of the games from district to district, with each occasion becoming a worse PR disaster than the last, with no actual plan in sight (except for the secret one based on an absurd set of unpredictable events involving picking up the not dead girl inconspicuously with the corpse ship after being struck directly by lightning doesn't kill her). Unfortunately, this movie still doesn't have more plot holes than times someone says "Katniss."

And for the record, no one even catches any fire in this movie. What a sham.

19 comments:

  1. OK. I'm so tired of people like you insulting Catching fire. Honestly, if this movie was so terrible then how come it made more than 2.6 million dollars the first 2 days it was released? It was one of the biggest and best movies of the century (For now, until Mockingjay part 1 comes out) And the beginning wasn't supposed to be actiony, that happens later on in the movie. And ur girlfriend and you must have pretty bad taste in movies because I would love you to tell that to the millions, and millions, and millions, and millions of Catching fire fans. Catching fire was an AMAZING movie, people love Jennifer Lawrence and her work. She's amazing. and the title "Catching fire" doesn't mean someone catches fire. Dumbass. shows how much common sense you have. The plot of this movie is that Katness survived the hunger games but played the capitol. But they didn't take it so well, so they made a rematch where the tributes were supposed to be reaped from the existing pool of victors. After that, katness happened to blow up the arena and escape to district 13 with her friends and family all safe. In the next move (Mockingjay part 1) The capitol takes peeta and katness tries to get him back, and a whole war breaks out. Honestly I couldn't think of a better movie. Billions of people love this movie and you are just one of those people who aren't happy with anything. That's all I have to say. And twilight was amazing as well. I wish I could find you and punch u in the face and throw a catching fire and twilight movie at yo ratchet face. Toodles hun, see you at mockingjay part 1!

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    1. So much of what you said is bullshit that I'm just going to run my comb through your post and reply to my favorite part: if "billions" of people love this movie, which by definition is at least 2,000,000,000 human beings, do you mean to say that about 1 out of every 3 people currently alive have seen Catching Fire?

      Also, lol, way to threaten someone over the internet.

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    2. You cant think of a better movie ? I have seen 30 minute tv shows more entertaining than this. the whole premise of this movie is nonsense if someone bothers to take the time to think about it. You know who does not take the time to arrive at the conclusion that the premise is nonsense ?? ...MORONS ...people who actually think this is a good movie.

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    3. Why did it make a lot of money? Because shit sells!

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  2. daaaaaang. I kinda agree with anonomys, catching fire was really great :D I liked it

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    1. Sure, we all like different things. As is apparent, at this point, Catching Fire is not one of those things, for me.

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  3. You said some pretty lame things. Did you even see the first movie? If you watched the first movie then you'd realize the fire isn't real, that is why dress didn't burn up, its a special effects dress, umm, who knows what technology exist in the future. Maybe look up on youtube "quick change artist" to see some present technology that will blow your mind.

    As for the Infrastructure part it seems to be based on what is happening with our government and elite. Just like in the movie there goal seems to be to accumulate mass wealth and supply's, hidden bunkers, fortress's if you will, so if economy collapses they control us all for hundreds of years to come and will be able to afford to have thousands upon thousands of troops patrolling our streets, rounding people up, and keeping us in order when martial law is declared.

    Maybe you don't know much about our history or whats happening in the world today. Maybe you should watch some Alex Jones videos or look up some conspiracy theories/facts on youtube to get a better understanding.

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    1. Come on, sport, Alex Jones?

      If it wasn't clear to you that the part about the dress catching fire is a joke, then you're an idiot. That statement on my part is at the very end of the post and unrelated to any previous topic – doesn't that sort of set off your sarcasm detector?

      As for the infrastructure part – do you understand that martial law by definition takes power *away* from civillians? If it was imposed, the wealthy civillians you cite seeking to amass various fortunes would have about the same rights/power as any non-government military personnel: no power at all. Your blatant misunderstanding of the terms you throw around suggest you belong on http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart

      Anyway, just because you disagree with someone, it doesn't mean you should be a condescending little shit about it – it's people like you that make it impossible to hold meaningful discourse over the internet.

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    2. Alex Jones????? Hahaha....conspiracy theory facts???? Hahaha. The Guy who Said in 2009 that they were training 16 year olds to enforce martial law within 2 or 3 years... The guy who said 15 European nations would financially collapse by June 2010... The guy who keeps repeating that world war three will break out every other year... Right!!! Good one.

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  4. Honestly, I don't like the Catching Fire, nor do I like Jennifer Lawrence. I actually agreed with you until I saw the comments. You, sir, are a douchebag.

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    1. Deciding whether or not you agree with someone's logic on the basis of their character is fallacious, so, in short, thank you for simultaneously complimenting my article and also providing some amusement through your idiocy.

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  5. Great review! Very accurate and great points!

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  6. Rambler, you did it now. There's gonna be "millions, and millions, and millions, and millions" & "millions, and millions, and millions, and millions" of tween eloi filling you full of toy arrows sharpened with pencil sharpeners. They've figured out from their looped Hunger Gameseseses that the pointy end goes out in front, and no matter how many shiny things you can find to distract them, they will not,.... oh I love this stupid pop song. What were we talkin' about?

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  7. God I hated Catching Fire. The only thing I could think while watching it was, this was exactly the same movie as the first one, except that the novelty of the actual games had completely worn off. It was like those shameless and brainless sequels which just repeat the formula of the first successful movie all over again to much less effect. Like Teen Wolf Too and Jaws 2. Catching Fire was just an inferior rehash of the first movie and the plot did not move forward at all until the very end, which ironically was the same problem Mockingjay had, but Mockingjay was about 10 times WORSE than Catching Fire.

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    1. Don't worry. A Mockingjay review is currently underway. I had the misfortune of seeing it yesterday.

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    2. This movie sucked. Pure pop-culture crap. Boring, pointless scenes abound. Aside from that, are we to believe that a 115 lb girl would not get slautered after being gang-raped within the first 5 minutes in any type of war ?

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  8. I absolutely hate every single book and movie on the franchise. It's premise is dumb, and the characters are lame. It's just as bad as Twilight! People only like it because every time a popular children's book turned film comes out, everyone immediately sees "the new Harry Potter." That's the only reason Catching Fire made some Michael money, and because fangirls are gonna love absolutely everything that has a female character lead. These films and books are just plain garbage.

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    1. Ugh, Spellcheck sucks. I meant much money, and its, not Michael money and it's.

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  9. Agree, this movie was trash. I liked hunger games, just like i enjoyed battle royale. Catching fire was so bad i stopped watching halfway with my wife... 1. Its so boring. 2. Worse, its devoid of any realistic logic. I get it, its the future... that doesnt mean simple logic gets thrown out the window. 3... screw this, the idiot who is tired of seeing people who hated this garbage to voice their opinions... get fucked you bitch, come find me and punch me in the face... the movie was shit and sold because the first one was somewhat ok. That doesnt mean any of the others were ok. I gave catching fire a chance, they fucked it, i wont spend any money supporting what i see as garbage. Your the fucking jackass that would probably force people to watch this shit bc you enjoy garbage.

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