The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was
released on Blu-Ray yesterday, which gave me a chance to finally watch the
movie and review it. Though, I figured that I should also review the Blu-Ray
conversion of the movie, so I will review both of them here. I will start with
the Blu-Ray conversion.
PICTURE QUALITY
This is a somewhat visual
movie. For the first half, when it takes place going around the districts, it is
not that visual. Though, the entire second half, inside the hunger games, was
very visual. So this Blu-Ray conversion would have to do a good job at making
the two settings seem very different. It does a great job at that. Everything
in the hunger games seems very visual and immersive. Outside of the hunger
games, it seems somewhat dull. Though, that is sometimes a problem with the
movie. During the first half, the lighting was too boring. Though, the overall
picture quality was very good. For a bit part of the movie, it lit up the
pixels on the T.V. with a good color scheme.
AUDIO QUALITY
Though the film is not huge
on audio, the audio quality of Blu-Ray has to be good, or else something will
seem off. Here, the audio sounded good. Nothing seemed off and it sounded
somewhat immersive. When the audio gets really loud in the film, I could feel
the intensity through the audio. During the hunger games, it almost seemed like
the audio was surrounding me, and it is always best when the audio does that.
The score was another thing that sounded very good here. It really did seem
like what the score was supposed to sound like.
FILM
Many people
were not satisfied with The Hunger Games
and were hoping for this one to be better. With me thinking that The Hunger Games was actually overrated
and just an alright movie, I was also hoping for this one to be better. I
wanted it to be darker, better-directed, have better characters and action, and
also seem less thin than the first. The first one just seemed like it
introduced the character, and then we are off to the hunger games. This one met
with almost all of those expectations.
First off,
the action in this film was directed in a much better style than it was in The Hunger Games. There were no moments
where I could not tell what was going on due to the use of “shaky cam”. There
was also no very quick-cut editing during the action. For the most part, I could
tell what was going on. And for the most part, the film was directed fine. The
actors did well under this direction and the style of filming did not bother
me. Also, there were hints of great direction.
This is a
very good-looking movie. During the hunger games scenes, it is very visual and
the visuals look good. Some did look a bit cheesy, but for the most part, I bought
into the CG. Outside of the hunger games, the lighting of the film matched the tone.
It was somewhat dark, but not too dark. The lighting was able to help carry out
this tone, so the cinematographer did a very good job. Also, the tone worked
for what the movie was then. It had some great themes that this entire series
aimed for, but the themes were missing from the first one. Here, they are
present and they work extremely well.
I was nearly
intrigued with what was going on before the hunger games started. I liked
President Snow’s plan and was interested in what he was going to do. I was also
interested in what was happening was District 12 and everything else. There
were some intense scenes here. Many people complained that the hunger games did
not start until halfway into the movie, but the reason for that was that the
filmmakers were aiming to make the audience interested in not the hunger games,
but the world outside of the hunger games. I thought that was executed very
well.
To me, the
plot of this movie was very surprisingly unpredictable. I really did not see
the ending coming at all. And before the hunger games, I really did not know
what was going to happen. I was pleasantly surprised at how much enjoyment that
added to the movie. I enjoyed this movie for the most part. There were a few
dull moments, but it was an enjoyable experience. Also, I loved the ending. It was
a great ending. I am now somewhat looking forward to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
With all of
these things I liked about the movie, there were definitely things I did not
like about it. In fact, the pros and cons of this movie are almost equal. One of
my flaws is that even thought I had no problems with how the action was filmed,
it was very underwhelming action. I did not feel intensity exhilaration when
watching the action, and I think that was because of how the action was choreographed
and crafted. It did not have any edge-of-your seat moments.
Like its
predecessor, this film has many, many conveniences and several things that
definitely would not have really happened. Some of the conveniences, I could deal
with. But some were too big for me to put with. Many of the conveniences took
me out of the movie. Many of the things that definitely would not have happened
were bigger than the conveniences and those also took me out of the movie.
While most
of directing in this film was fine, there was some directing that was not good.
In some of the scenes, there were way too many cuts and it just felt like
several isolated shots that were not part of one scene. Some of the scenes, I could
tell, were not directed like they should have been. Sometimes, this took away
from the enjoyment. There were some boring moments in this film. There were
times when I just wanted the film to move on. I was ready for something else.
A very
surprising thing to me while watching this movie was that there were many
really bad lines and there were several scenes that were written poorly. Some of
the lines were very cheesy and did not work. Sometimes I could tell what the writers
were aiming for in the screenplay, but it was either not executed well or the
writers did not write it like they should have. There were also many clichés in
the writing. I am not talking about the plot, but the construction of the
scenes. Some lines were clichéd and some minor events were clichéd. Some scenes,
in general, were clichéd. This factor of the script was unpleasantly surprising
to me.
While the
film does have its flaws, The Hunger
Games: Catching Fire is a good movie, in my opinion, that is still better
than the first. The Blu-Ray conversion here is also very good so I recommend at
least renting this Blu-Ray if you have never watched the movie before.
No comments:
Post a Comment