Movies --- Catching Fire

The movie, "Catching Fire," part two of the "Hunger Games" trilogy, is a close adaptation of the book by Suzanne Collins.

I liked this movie a lot better than the first one, mostly for its superior quality.  The original "Hunger Games" movie was plagued by a lot of distracting, shaky, hand-held camera work. 

For those of you who have neither read the books, nor seen the first movie, the setting is that of a post-modern city called Panem, which taxes its 12 districts into starvation while drafting two teenagers from each district every year, to fight each other to the death in the Hunger Games arena.  The purpose of this televised blood-bath is for the pleasure of the rich citizens of the capital city, and to punish the districts for a 75 year old rebellion, in order to keep them in complete subjection.  The trilogy is a story of survival and revolution.

Yes, its depressing.  Don't look for a happy ending, or any comfortable ending at all, other than a forced separation which will lead directly into book three.

Still, the acting and camera work is good. The costumes are good.  The story is true to the book.  The make-up and special effects are good.  And, unlike the first movie, I will actually see this again.

Whether you read these books or watch the movies, you should remember the excesses of Imperial Rome.  Some of these were repeated in the book, "Killing Jesus."  The parallels between Rome and the fictional city of Panem are not accidental, and a few incidents are direct copies from Roman history.

Would I recommend that you see this movie?  Only if you are a fan of the Hunger Games, Dystopian fiction, or you really want to see a strong character, scared out of her mind, survive extreme odds in a realistic Horror plot.  If you are a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," you will probably love it.