The 75th annual Hunger Games!

Catching Fire, book two of the Hunger Games series, translated wonderfully to the big screen.

Right off the bat you can tell that this film has significantly more of a budget than the first movie, which greatly adds to the scale and magnitude. Catching Fire picks up a couple months after the end of the first movie, as Katniss and Peeta are preparing for a victory tour of the 12 districts. Unknown to Katniss her actions at the end of her first games sparked a seed of hope and started a growing revolution in the districts.

Desperate to extinguish the fire of revolution, President Snow creates a plan for the special 75th edition of the Hunger Games to put Katniss back in the games.

This movie builds on the characters and world developed in the first Hunger Games, and makes them richer and stronger. As far as movies based on young adult books go, this one definitely has the best actors and story, unlike another series about shiny vampires and teenage girls.

Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks shine as background characters that are so over the top but are still able to portray real emotion through the layers of make-up. Oscar-winning Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss wonderfully, she is able to portray the confusion and trauma that you read in the book as her thoughts on screen with great skill.

Overall Catching Fire followed the book very closely with only a few minor details changed, but these changes did not affect the overall plot arch of the series at all. I will say that there was way too much kissing in this movie: Katniss kissing Gale, Peeta kissing Katniss, Katniss kissing Peeta.

The hunger games seems to be following in the trend of other great trilogies of the past such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones where the middle edition of the series is darker than the rest. Though more intense and dark than the first it did have its comedic moments such as a very awkward elevator ride where a fellow tribute strips down to nothing in front of Peeta, Katniss and Haymitch.

I would certainly recommend this movie to others. Some people may feel like it’s too similar to the first movie because there is another Hunger Games, but in my opinion they are wrong. I will say that people who have read the books first will better appreciate this movie, compared to those who only watch the movies.