The film began with scenery reminiscent of the Twilight movies, so you can imagine that it brought me to laughter at its start. However, the outdoor setting relating back to the ridiculous Twilight movies quickly turned legitimately intense as Katniss attempted to shoot a turkey. Her reaction to shooting the turkey and having a vision of killing a tribute shows her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not exactly her emotional state. I've heard it argued that Katniss was more emotional in this movie and that the actress better portrayed Katniss' emotions. I disagree. In the books, Katniss is not a very emotional person, she's very thoughtful (as in, she thinks a lot). Throughout Catching Fire, the book, Katniss has many more outbursts, as a result of her being traumatized, leading her to have many more in this movie, contrasted to the previous one. Katniss in The Hunger Games serves as a participant; now, in Catching Fire, Katniss must deal with her past and start dealing with the trauma it has caused. The adrenaline has worn off (now that she doesn't need to literally survive), now she's stuck processing everything she went through and everything she did while also struggling with the more physical consequences of her actions. Overall, I believe she, and the other actors, did a great job portraying their characters; or, I was just too distracted by the awesomeness of the movie to notice bad acting.
I understand that the writers of the film must have chosen to also have Gale in this opening scene in order to speed up the process of showing his and Katniss' potential love interest, but I honestly think the book's opening scene would have been more powerful. A sixteen-year-old girl drinking away her traumatized past would have hit the audience more dramatically and driven home the point of her suffering more thoroughly, I think. By the way, I hate how the world is creating a "Team Gale, Team Peeta" around this story. It was okay to do that with Twilight; because, other than an obsession with being young and beautiful, Twilight made few statements about society worth looking more deeply into. The fact that we're taking this story and turning it into a fetish about who is the "better guy" for the heroine means that we are doing exactly what is so disgusting about the Capitol inhabitants. We are failing to recognize the grotesquery (I may have just made up a word) given to us in the story. THE STORY IS ABOUT CHILDREN KILLING OTHER CHILDREN BECAUSE THEIR GOVERNMENT FORCES THEM TO AND THEIR PARENTS HAVEN'T STOPPED IT. Yet, we, as a society, allow ourselves to get caught up in the very, very slight, insignificant romance in the story. The romance was only important to the extent that it provided some relief to the dreary aspects, even though the romances often also exacerbated the problems.
Another thing that makes me sick is the advertisements by Covergirl. I get that the brand may have done the make-up for the movie, but they shouldn't be advertising the styles as something we should mirror or repeat. The whole point of the Capitol people looking that way was to cover-up the nastiness beneath and to juxtapose them and those from the Districts.
Suzanne Collins may be brilliant. She has let us mirror what she has shown us is so wrong in her books. However, if she were really feeling this way, I would hope she'd voice this opinion. But, perhaps she's either not that brilliant after all or she's also fallen prey to hypocrisy.
Other than the scenery given in the opening scene, the only other scenery I had a major problem with was the Victor's Village. I pictured it to indeed be "sanitary" but more colorful, or at least grand, from the outside. The movie made the village look like a cemetery. The arched entrance looked like one that would be at a cemetery entrance and each home looked like a tombstone. This was not what I pictured at all.
I really appreciate the looks we get at the gamemaker's studio and the president's house through the film interpretations. However, I was surprised they didn't put in the part about Plutarch Heavensbee showing Katniss his watch at the president's party though. That would have been wonderful foreshadowing! I was very impressed with the arena and the attack of Cinna before Katniss entered the arena. The only problem I had with the arena was that I was very confused with where Katniss and other tributes were when she dove in the water and ran on the platform. I also couldn't figure out why Finnick, being such a natural swimmer, wasn't able to reach Peeta and help him when he was fighting the other tribute in the water.
I would have also liked more character development of the other tributes. And, Finnick was NOT cast right. Sam Claflin is not very attractive in the way Finnick should have been and really doesn't seem to fit the mold for smooth, charming, cold, passionate, and deceptive all at the same time. But, I'm not very surprised he was given that role. After his appearance in Pillars of the Earth, then in some PBS movies, and finally in Pirates of the Caribbean, I knew he'd get a role in one of the big "blockbusters" loved by teen girls.
I really, really, really liked Katniss' hairstyles! Although, she is supposed to have drastically longer hair. Her hair for the president's party was SO intense! I loved it. I also liked the general braid they chose for her this time. I don't really understand why they changed her costumes from what she was supposed to wear in the book though. I definitely pictured different suits for the arena as well.
Well, for now at least, I've run out of things to say and I'm very tired.
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