Warning: Article contains spoilers!
Since middle school, I have been a fan of "The Hunger Games" series written by Suzanne Collins. On March 21 of 2012, the first film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" was released, selling out in movie theaters across the globe. After some criticizing, the movie left many of the fans a little disappointed by the changes in the story and the production. That didn't mean that we were all waiting for the inevitable part two to the trilogy: "Catching Fire".
The day had come, November 22, 2013, when "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" would be released. Being the gigantic fan that I am, I pleaded my mom to let me go to the midnight premier, but she rejected my puppy dog face and pouting only to say that we were going on Saturday night in an IMAX theater. After hearing nothing but wonderful things about to the movie for nearly two days, it was my turn to watch the movie I had been waiting over a year and a half to see for myself.
The hour-long wait was worth every second. After standing and sitting in a line by the door for seemingly endless minutes, the crowd was allowed in. Being one of the first to show up, my family and I got a nice spot near the center of the room. The lights dimmed all the way down, the ginormous IMAX screen started showing great scenery of a forest. Then, when it focused on Katniss Everdeen, a victor of the 75th annual Hunger Games, I knew that I would be on a thrilling journey for a little over two hours.
The movie revolves around the lives of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, victors of the 74th annual Hunger Games. A Hunger Games is a pageant of intelligence, bravery, will, and strength presented by the Capitol of Panem due to an uprising that left a thirteenth district extinct. The country of Panem now consists of twelve districts and the Capitol, which runs the country. In the Hunger Games, a boy and a girl, from the ages of twelve through eighteen, must be raffled from each district to compete in an arena to fight to the death. If you win the Hunger Games, you get fame and fortune, but if you lose, you face a despicable death.
Since Katniss and Peeta both managed to come out of their Hunger Games alive, they are to go through a victory tour where each are to give a speech to the families and districts of the fallen tributes and to attend gatherings and parties. Vile events happened during the tour that gave Katniss an idea that there could soon be a revolution among the districts against the Capitol.
When everyone is back to District 12 safe and sound, Peacekeepers begin to enforce harsh laws and codes of conduct. After all is settled down for some part, the antagonist, President Snow, pulls a cruel thing out of his hat; he has something special planned for the next Hunger Games.
Every twenty five years, a special Hunger Games is set, called the Quarter Quell. In the first Quarter Quell, the tributes were voted to go into the Hunger Games. In the second Quarter Quell, the Hunger Games that Haymitch Abernathy won, twice as many children were to go into the Hunger Games. Seeing an opportunity to dispose of Katniss, President Snow has the special Quarter Quell break a giant rule of the Hunger Games: If you win a Hunger Games, you never go back in again. President Snow has a boy victor and a girl victor from each district reaped to compete in the third Quarter Quell.
With Katniss being the only female victor in her district, her reaping is inevitable. Haymitch and Peeta are the only male victors in District 12. If Peeta gets picked, Haymitch would volunteer to take his place; if Haymitch got reaped, Peeta would volunteer. The time had come for the reaping. Katniss gets chosen to go back in the arena. For the boys, Haymitch is drawn from the lottery, but, as predicted, Peeta volunteered to take his place. After being quickly whisked away by Peacekeepers, Katniss and Peeta must find a way to ally with strong victors from the other districts to stay alive in the arena. After Katniss forces Haymitch to promise Peeta's survival, the tributes are set to go into the arena and start fighting to the death at the end of the countdown . . .
Hands down, this movie deserves a rating of ten out of ten. The acting was so superb that the emotions of the characters were easily transferred to the audience. All of the amazing feedback I had gotten before seeing "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" myself was accurate. The detail of the movie was wonderful and depicted everything remarkably. On a side note to readers, the movie did a wonderful job keeping itself aligned with the book. There were a few changes, but they are easily overseen. The whole movie was astonishingly spectacular and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone as long as they had read or watched the first installment, "The Hunger Games".
Author's Note: This is a sequel to a movie, so it would be better for the reader to have seen or read the first installment, "The Hunger Games" beforehand. This movie is rated PG-13 due to intense sequences of violence and action, some frightening images, thematic elements, a suggestive situation and language. This movie may be too intense and inappropriate for unsupervised viewers under the age of 13.
Source: http://catchingfiremovienews.com/hunger-games-catching-fire-poster-katniss-everdeen
I adjusted the image to properly fit within the article.
