Catching Fire picks up more or less where the first film left off. Katniss and Peeta have returned home to District 12, where they’re rewarded with huge new houses and all the food they can eat, but that doesn’t mean they can live happily ever after. Winning the Hunger Games comes with more than just a material prize – Victors can also look forward to traumatic flashbacks, constant nightmares, and an inability to let their guard down, ever again. And for Katniss in particular, there’s an added bonus: because her public act of defiance has sparked a rebellion in the Districts, she’ll either have to become the Capitol’s puppet, or the President will kill everyone she loves, as a little reminder of who’s really in charge. It’s almost a cliché at this point to praise Jennifer Lawrence for her acting, but her performance is vital to the success of this film, and she’s flawless. Katniss’s every thought is clearly legible on her face, every feeling visible in her eyes. The Hunger Games saga is all about grand gestures and crushing emotions playing out on an enormous scale, and without Lawrence, it’s hard to imagine it how it could work. Her Katniss feels utterly real and deeply relatable, and if you’re not crying by the end of the first act, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am. The only disadvantage to Lawrence’s brilliance is that her co-stars tend to look a bit slack by comparison. Even so, there are some great supporting performances in Catching Fire. Josh Hutcherson as Peeta manages to convey just the right mixture of defiance and vulnerability; Liam Hemsworth’s Gale is, once again, short-changed as far as screen time goes, but he does at least provide an interesting foil for Peeta. Elizabeth Banks is, once again, brilliant as Effie, especially in her quieter moments, and Stanley Tucci’s Caesar is a glitzy, sinister, menacing delight. And Jenna Malone as Johanna Mason is pitch perfect casting – you can already see the animated gifs that are going to be made of her scenes. The only new character in Catching Fire who really matters is Finnick, and he doesn’t quite translate to the screen. He isn’t in it for long enough to make as much of an impact as he should, and he doesn’t get all of his hero moments, either. Whether he’s magnetically attractive enough probably depends on whether or not you fancy Sam Claflin, but he doesn’t quite seem to have the charisma that’s so necessary to Finnick’s character. The other problem with Catching Fire is that there’s a bit of an Empire Strikes Back vibe to it; it’s not really a complete story in its own right. It feels like, well, what it is – the middle part of a story, the bridge between the beginning and the end. And it ends on a cliffhanger, which is a bit anticlimactic. There are also some accusations of sequelitis to be made, especially towards the end, when it starts to feel like certain parts of the first film are just being replayed on a slightly larger scale. There’s even one clever use of muted obscenity, which feels like it might be pushing at the limits of the 12A rating. Maybe it’s a little bit top-heavy, and despite its breakneck pace, it can’t quite hide the fact that at 146 minutes, it’s really, really long. But there’s barely a second of it you’d want to miss. Catching Fire is a gorgeously made film: a brave, cutting political parable with an enormous heart. It’s going to be a long wait for Mockingjay Part 1. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
