The sequel to 2012’s smash hit, The Hunger Games, opens with a striking visual. Heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) crouches low, bow in her hand, water before her, and the sky grey. It’s an iconic image, one that immediately gave me hope that director Francis Lawrence had managed to add some visual flair to the franchise.
Francis Lawrence is best known for a pair of underrated big-budget genre flicks, Constantine (2005) and I Am Legend (2007). Both films combined stunning visuals and solid camerawork with taut pacing to create wholly believable worlds out of faintly ridiculous settings.
As a result, Lawrence seemed like the perfect fit for the new Hunger Games film. The first in the series was both utterly competent and utterly bland, more interested in exposition than in world building.
Unfortunately, other than that opening image, Lawrence doesn’t seem to have been given much room to play around in here. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is much of the same: lots of standing around and talking without much in the way of flair or excitement.
The sequel opens shortly after where the first left off. Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), having won the 74th Annual Hunger Games, have moved into mansions on the outskirts of the Capitol. While living in the Victor’s Village, they must fake an epic romance, lest they incur the wrath of President Snow (Donald Sutherland).
The land over which Snow rules—a dystopian United States in which the nation has been divided into 12 impoverished districts governed by the obscenely wealthy Capitol—is on the brink of revolt. That is in no small part because Katniss and Peeta openly defied Snow by pressuring him and his game master to allow both of them to survive the Hunger Games. Troops are sent to each of the districts to maintain order. Whippings and executions dot the nightly news.
To quell the rebellion, Snow and new game maker Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) concoct a wrinkle for the 75th games: The participants will be chosen from the ranks of previous winners. As a result, Katniss and Peeta are headed back into the arena. The lesson to the districts—and the winners—is clear. No one is beyond the reach of the government.
The second film suffers from some of the same problems as the second book. It is essentially a rehash. Katniss and Peeta pretend to be in love; Katniss is really in love with Gale (Liam Hemsworth); Katniss must train for the games; and, finally, Katniss must survive the games.
Considering that the Capitol is the source of evil, it’s oddly dissonant that the film only really sparks to life when we see and interact with its decadent and unethical residents. From the cold and calculating President Snow to the fussy Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) to the somber Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) to the effusive game show host Caesar (Stanley Tucci), the residents of the Capitol are far more interesting than any of the other dour folks on the screen.
The outré fashions of the elite—Effie wears a dress made of butterflies; Caesar’s garish purple hair matches an equally garish purple tuxedo jacket—and manic behavior are pleasing contrasts to the relentlessly somber people we see elsewhere. Sadly, it feels as if Caesar had far less screen time this time around, a blow to his many fans.
Most frustratingly, we only get a glimpse of the districts, and no real sense of the disconnect between the wealthy—and therefore more content—locales located near the capital and the poorer, more distant, districts ready to explode in violence.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is, like its predecessor, thoroughly competent. But it lacks that special something to set it apart.