CATCHING FIRE BLU RAY
****
This girl is on fire.
FILM: The Hunger Games sequel. In the second film Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) become targets of the Capitol after their victory in the Hunger Games sparks rebellion in various Panem Districts.
They travel around Panem but don’t get to see what is really going on, before it is time for the Quarter Quell, the 75th Hunger Games competition which changes things.
Stanley Tucci should steal the show as the lavender-haired TV show host, Caesar Flickerman, but there are so many crazy cooky characters for competition.
Like space cadet Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), boozed-up Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) who tells it like it is, or catch up one last time with Phillip Seymour Hoffmann as the propaganda savvy Plutarch Heavensby, or the lovely Cinna (Lenna Kravitz), rebel clothing designer extraordinaire.
This sequel remained as gritty as the first film, creating a compelling film which explored the book trilogy’s political allegories and adolescent escapism in equal measure.
The larger budget went into even better costumes and bigger sets and Lawrence keeps your attention – the film was the highest grossing feature of this year in the US, the first one to top the box office with a top-billed female lead.
BONUS FEATURES: The Blu- Ray copy dives into a feature on Divergent. The Looking Forward feature is about how they had started working on the script of Hunger Games 3: The Mocking Jay while still filming Catching Fire.
There is audio commentary with director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson.
Surviving the Game: Making the Hunger Games: Catching Fire are featurettes on the visual vocabulary, the casting, stunts, post-production, deleted scenes and more. – Theresa Smith