Catching Fire Review

Catching Fire was a complete success. This sequel to the Hunger Games was stuffed full with emotion and devastation even more-so than its heartbreaking predecessor. As loved-ones and strangers die around Katniss, the true beauty of the movie was in Jennifer Lawrence's phenomenal acting in times of immediate trauma. Jennifer lost it when terrible things were happening, so much so that the audience has no choice but to lose it with her.

Catching Fire nearly doubled its budget from the $78 Million budget of The Hunger Games, which is a large contributing factor to its quality skyrocketing above the first movie. And this movie just had a much larger scale. Quality actors and actresses held every role  of the tributes so that even minor fight scenes had the sense of epicness.

Through Cathing Fire, Jennifer Lawrence and the rest of the cast show us a glimpse of what trauma looks like. They show us pain and agony and the line where agony becomes too much to bear. They show us what love looks like when the end of life may be around the corner.

These movies (and the books) have often been criticized for their violence and marketing toward a younger crowd. I agree that the themes of The Hunger Games trilogy are not appropriate for the two 10-year-olds I was sitting next to in the IMAX showing last night. But I have never seen a movie that portrayed a more anti-violence stance.

The characters in the books and movies don't fight to win and move on. If they fight and win, they scream in their sleep from nightmares, see the bodies of those they've killed in the woods. It haunts them every day. Those who fight and lose are mourned constantly.

Even the movies spend enough time on this for the viewer to know: their loved one's will never forget them and are shaken to their core by loss. The Hunger Games series shows that their are terrible consequences for violence and does justice to the true human reaction to loss and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often found in military memoirs and other non-fiction trauma stories.

Because of the scope of the movie, incredible acting by all (especially Jennifer Lawrence), and the true emotional trauma that the movie shares with the audience, it will be a massive hit. I suspect it will over double its box office return from the first Hunger Games ($691 Million) and will be rated as one of the best movies of the year. (I personally think it is the BEST movie of the year. And I don't think The Hobbit will beat it out.)
*Update: Catching Fire made $158 Million on its opening weekend, failing to clench the record of biggest opening weekend by only $3 Million from The Dark Knight Rises. Catching Fire has made $318 Million worldwide as of Sunday Night.

If you haven't yet, go see this incredible cinematic production. It is a humanizing experience that we often don't get in our everyday lives. Everyone deserves the opportunity to encounter two basic connections to humanity that are the emotion and loss that can be felt in watching Catching Fire. 

The experience of losing someone you love right in front of your eyes is not something that every one of us will encounter in our lives, and that's a very good thing, but that also means we will not be able to fully relate to those of us who have had that experience. Though Catching Fire doesn't give a substitute for that experience, it unlocks the emotional responses that go along with these particular types of trauma. It makes us feel what the characters feel and engage terrible atrocities in humanity that we would never have to face otherwise, at least for most viewers. It gives us the chance of empathy and understanding.

To feel the pain of death is to forget about homework and your job tomorrow morning. We can put aside matters of the day to day and reengage themes that exist at the base of our humanity. Life, death, loss, fear for ourselves and for our loved ones. Catching Fire brings us more than entertainment. It brings us a look deeper into ourselves.

We can now look forward to Mockingjay: Part 1, which will be equally as emotional or even more so. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lawrence said she cried on her first read-through of the script. This will be very good.