This Girl is on Fire

She's just a girl, and she's on fire
Hotter than a fantasy, lonely like a highway
She's living in a world, and it's on fire
Feeling the catastrophe, but she knows she can fly away

 

If it wasn't for the fact that R&B diva Alicia Keys' album 'Girl on Fire' came out a full year to the day before 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' was released in theatres, its title track would have been the perfect anthem to this second installment of the popular Suzanne Collins YA trilogy, in which the lovely and talented Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as the Diana-esque archer Katniss Everdeen competing in the popular bloodsport known as 'The Hunger Games' held each year in the bleak and dystopian future world of Panem.

 

Just one year after co-winning the 74th annual 'Hunger Games' with her male counterpart and 'lover' Peeta Mellark representing District 12, Katniss and Peeta find themselves imperiled again when President Snow (Donald Sutherland) held the third 'Quarter Quell,' a once-in-25-years event when the powers-that-be can break tradition in the games and do whatever they want to "quell" the rebellious districts.  Oh, curse the gods that they just had to be winners of the 74th games!  At least Katniss and Peeta were more dignified and accepted their misfortune with a bit more tact than the District 7 tribute, Johanna Mason, portrayed with comedic effect by Jena Malone.

 

'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' is another crowd-pleaser packed with action and melodrama, even if not all of it came across entirely convincingly.  The contrived love triangle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta "deepens," no doubt for the sake of swooning teenage hearts, and this second installment had more to do with surviving the deadly artificial environments and dangers thrown in by new Gamemaker Plutarch Heaventree (Philip Seymour Hoffman) than trying to kill each other for the entertainment of the masses.  There's more cooperation and teamwork in 'Catching Fire' among the various tributes than in the first film, as Katniss slowly realizes her true destiny, which becomes clear at the movie's abrupt and unresolved ending, to be concluded in the third and final installment  'Mockingjay.'

 

What makes this YA trilogy so appealing is that it's a timeless story of good versus evil, much like 'Star Wars' and 'The Lord of the Rings.'  The world of 'The Hunger Games' is contrasted in stark black and white with no moral ambiguity.  Katniss Everdeen is not only a symbol against tyranny and oppression, a beacon of hope in a world of despair for many, but also represents the archetypal post-modern heroine, one who wields her bow and arrows with as much dexterity, skill and efficiency as Buffy with her signature wooden stake.

Grade: A

For my take on the first installment, here it is:
http://moviesaccordingtodave.blogspot.com/2012/04/let-games-begin.html