The first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games, was a gripping and fantastically written story that the movie version more-or-less completely ruined, by dumbing it down into a Twilight-like commercial vehicle (see my review of it here.) Catching Fire, on the other hand, was a pretty mediocre and disappointing book, with a very contrived plot and poorly structured writing, which this movie version actually managed to improve upon. It might be that the story in the second book is better suited to a movie treatment, while the first would have taken a genius filmmaker to do justice to. In any event, my wife and I both enjoyed Catching Fire more than we expected to.

I didn’t realize it, but they changed writers and directors between the two films, to very positive effect. The questionable Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabisciut) directed the first, while Francis Lawrence (I am Legend, Water for Elephants) directed Catching Fire. Unlike Ross, Lawrence got good performances out of the entire cast; even Jennifer Lawrence, who’s threatening to become the most overrated actress in the history of Hollywood, turns in a fairly decent performance. The castings of Beetree (Jeffrey Wright,) Johanna (Jena Malone,) and Finnick (Sam Claflin) were inspired and very effective. Catching Fire also has a much better look to it than did its predecessor, and the writing is superior, both in terms of dialog and scene structure. It’s a long film, but you stay with the story remarkably well. They even managed to make the whole games sequence seem a bit less contrived and a bit more cohesive than it was in the book.

Basically, they really did a nice job with the film, and any lover of the books will enjoy seeing it.