This post has spoilers for the Catching Fire book and movie.
I watched the movie last weekend, my first movie of 2013 (that I watched in a theater). (My last movie was in November last year – Talaash, so you could say it traumatized me so much I haven’t been back since. (It was just a really bad movie. I can’t even find anything good to say about Aamir Khan.))
Anyway. I’m glad that this was the one movie I watched this year. It was definitely way better than the previous movie. It started out great and kind of petered out in the second half.
I loved the first half hour: Katniss’s PTSD and the victory tour. Without Katniss’ internal monologue which is really most of the books, they did a great job of conveying what she was thinking and feeling. Her shock and trauma after the last games, especially when she goes on the victory tour and is reminded more vividly of her dead friends and victims. When they go to District 9 and see the families of Rue and Tresh, and Peeta offers a generous gift and then Katniss finally gathers the courage to speak and weeps as she remembers Rue. Katniss in the movie cries in public where book-Katniss never would, but book-Katniss talked to us directly and told us what she was feeling, and movie-Katniss only has her expressions and her voice, and can’t communicate her thoughts to us directly.s