The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Film Adaptation and Others.

Today I finally watched the sequel film of the popular Hunger Games.  As a reader I’ve read all the books.  As a movie watcher, I’ve faithfully seen the movies.  I do my best to get to watching the movies adapted from the books that I’ve read and loved (with the exception of some that I missed out because of one reason or another).  While I didn’t love City of Bones to the extent of many other fans out there, I really enjoyed the dialogue (specially Jace’s) and I liked the World.  The World was exciting.  But I missed the movie while it was in cinemas, so I have to wait for the DVD to come out, which I can’t wait to see.  I wonder how good it turned out since I’ve seen snippets of it, in which I think the actor for Jace, Jamie Campbell Bower looks very hot, and also has Godfrey Gao in it (who I found out has filmed in several/many Taiwanese dramas – a genre of television which I had only gotten into when I started learning Chinese – so that was exciting to know! I like the idea of actors from one country crossing to others).

Anyway back to the point.  So I saw the Hunger Games today.  You know when I was younger, getting a ticket and finding your seat was never really an issue, technically we could sit anywhere we liked, but I’ve noticed now, people seemed to be really anal about getting the seat that is printed on your ticket.  Which is fair enough.  Generally I like to get that same seat too, but if you enter the cinema late, then someone has bound to have taken your spot, and not just that when you tell them to move, someone else has taken their spot too and there goes the row of dominoes.  So that’s what happened today, and so me and my friend ended up sitting in a different set of seats to the seats printed on our tickets.  And then the people whose seats we’d taken, sat next to us and those whose seats those girls had taken sat behind us.  What a mess.  This all started because my seat had been taken by some guy and that guy’s seat had been taken by another guy.  Well whatever, after that there were 30minutes worth of previews.  Granted I love previews because I get see some awesome damn movies that are coming out next year, but the negatives, they take so damn long.

However, I did see two interesting previews (asides from the Secret Life of Walter Mitty which just looks plain awesome) that I think is very exciting for fans of Vampire Academy and Divergent.  Which, I am of both.

Now, VA is probably one of the only vampire books that I will ever like.  Twilight having turned me off most of them, I find it really hard to pick up another.  Though I’ve heard Interview With A Vampire is definitely worth reading.  Anyway, so one of the first previews I saw was the preview for the VA movie.  Man when I heard that there was a movie coming out I was excited.  When I saw the cast though, I wasn’t really excited because the cast is very unfamiliar to me.  But the preview though, that looked awesome.  Although, it’s mostly aimed a romantic, fan-based audience, it still looks good.  And hell, I totally want to see it:

Then several ads later, I saw another totally hot for anticipation movie: Divergent.  Omg, I am practically salivating over it since I LOVED the book (not much a fan of the second though, and still waiting to read the third).  The movie, now, that looks impressive.  Although it looks like Hunger Games, it’s aimed more at a romantic audience (it really, really does emphasize Tris and Four’s romance), but yet, it looks like it’s following the novel.  I congratulated the Hunger Games for following closely to the plot, but it’s only because I know Suzanne Collins took part in the scriptwriting process (I’m not sure about the sequel).  Divergent, though, I have no idea who wrote the screenplay or whatever.  I also don’t know if I’ll love it, but what I do know is that from what I saw, I really want to see it.  Not just that but the actor for Four (now I was not really sold when I heard who it was, also, I have no idea who he is) after watching that trailer, I think he’ll do good.  Not just that, but there’s this scene from the book where Tris sees the tattoos on his back – this scene is also in the trailer, and omg, Four just looks hot (as he does throughout the entire trailer).  But I guess the only beef I had with it was well, Tris seems more braver and confident in the film than she seems in the novel.  Well, I can’t wait to see it either way! Check out the trailer:

Of course, there’s this little problem that I have with YA novels being adapted to big screen.  Most of the characters are Young Adults, so there’s a lot to teen-related issues and so on.  And there are some critics out there are whining about movies such as Twilight and the Hunger Games being filled with too much “tween” stuff.  Even if Twilight is hardly my favourite YA anything, and the Hunger Games shortly following (although I love Mockingjay the best), I don’t feel that it’s fair to complain about there being too much tween stuff, because the original material had been tween related, though, whenever I hear tween I feel like it’s related to 13 year olds.  I’d rather YA, which covers a broader category of humans, and less annoying-sounding.

So regardless, I am so going to see VA and Divergent.  I totally love the idea of watching a movie that has been adapted from my favourite novels.  Good or bad, receiving positive or negative criticism from me, I’ll still enjoy watching it (though if it’s bad, then enjoyability will be really low.)

NOW, on to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.  The positives:

–          Generally stuck close to the original plot

–          Jennifer Lawrence = Awesome.  Johanna (acted by Jena Malone) = awesome/hiliarious.  Same with Effie (acted by Elizabeth Banks).  Finnick = something totally unexpected.  I had no original idea of what Finnick could possibly look like, but when I saw him on screen, all I can say is, it was perfect. And whoa, just checked it’s Sam Claflin, who played Phillip in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  I completely did not expect that!  But good choice.

–          There’s a bigger emphasis on the political situation in this movie than the first.

–          The costumes are beautiful

Now the Negatives:

–          This had a different though similar feel to the first.  I get the same feeling in this movie as I had when I read Mockingjay.  The negative is that, because my memory is a bit fuzzy, I don’t really remember what happened in the novel, so while I think everything is there and I feel that it sticks closely to the plot, it does not feel the same as the first (an adaptation which I generally loved).

–          Phillip Seymour Hoffman who played Plutarch Heavensbee annoyed me to no end.  Every line he said sounded overly cheesy and too try hard, giving me the same feeling I have when I read implausible and bullshitty explanations in novels.  It just wasn’t convincing, so I don’t know how President Snow believed him!

–          This was a very long movie.  There’s a lot of build up before the beginning of the next round of the Hunger Games.  So it’s a bit trying.  But then again, like I said, this is following very closely with the novel’s plot and so on.  And this is also a negative because it’s exactly like the novel.  And this was the book that I liked the least of the three.

–          I don’t think Suzanne Collins took part in the screenplay this time, which is, utterly disappointing.

Overall.  The verdict.  Look, for fans of the series, this is brilliant.  For others who haven’t read the books but like YA aimed movies, this is also great, same for political movies and dystopian and so on.  But there is a lot of crap going on.  It’s directed well, filmed excellently, acted beautifully. The good thing is, it’s not entirely focussed on romance.  Not like VA and Divergent and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Check out the trailer:

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