Welcome to another round of Elizabeth is seriously the worst procrastinator ever! I wrote up most of this post in...November....and I then I just didn't...do anything...
But new 2014 Elizabeth is ON IT. (And also I was stuck at an airport. Hi crazy weather! It may have taken me a day and a half plus the hour it took me to break into my apartment since I left the key inside, but look! Now I have blog posts!)
OH MY GOD GUYS!!! THIS MOVIE!!!
I was originally going to post about something completely different, but I ended up watching Catching Fire last night and it was SO. GOOD. I mean I thought the The Hunger Games was an ok adaption of the book, especially since there's so little dialogue. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. But this? This movie was a whole new level of good. Seriously this was me the whole time:
I was such a mess watching this. If I had been alone in my room I would have bawled my eyes out, but as I was in a theatre full of people, I kept to some teary eyes and sniffles. Where can I even begin to describe this movie?
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The
acting. That's a good place to start. This is one of the strongest
casts I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. The chemistry between them
all is just amazing. Certain actors pull more out of the characters than
I had originally felt reading the books, which is really saying something.
The first and foremost of those is definitely Woody Harrelson's Haymitch.
In the books I saw Haymitch as a crotchety old drunk - which he is, but
Harrelson brings a whole new layer to the character. I won't spend too
much time on all the reasons, but I think anyone who has seen the movie at
least can agree he is a great Haymitch. I was extremely shocked at the
level of chemistry Lenny Kravitz brings to the screen as Cinna in the first
Hunger Games, and he doesn't disappoint in this movie either. I think
he's the character I see the most talked about which is amazing since Kravitz
doesn't have much screen time in either film, but he clearly packs a punch with
his five minutes of screen time. And then there's Elizabeth Banks who
really nails Effie's character, and of course I'm a huge Jennifer
Lawrence fan, and ok I will sum up the rest of the cast as simply amazing
because that is the less wordy way of saying what I feel about everyone.
They were all great and if their characters were different than how I imagined
them, they were so committed to their interpretation of the characters that I
became a believer too.
Yes, yes, yes!! You shouldn't have done this earlier! LOL It's the best adaptation I've seen so far. This should be what producers/directors should aspire to achieve if they ever think of handling a book franchise such as this. Awesome!!! <3
ReplyDeleteI know right? It's PERFECT (or pretty damn close to it). I actually saw it twice in theatres...and would have gone another time if I'd had the opportunity haha. I never rewatch movies in theaters! But this was totally worth it. And I discovered that going to the movie on the premier night makes a HUGE difference in audience reactions. From here on out if there's a movie I really care about, I'm going to the premiere.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree! (Also, maybe my expectations were lowers based on The Hunger Games?) But really I think they did a much better job handling it. My really big complaint with THG is they purposefully downplayed the showmance between Peeta and Katniss because they didn't want it associated with Twilight. Unfortunately, that showmance is a HUGE part of the plot! So if you hadn't read the book, it totally came out of nowhere. Ugh.
ReplyDelete*should have done this. Lol so tired, I'm more incoherent than usual. :P
ReplyDeleteYeah that was a big complaint of my brother's! But he also said he didn't think JLaw's acting was very good so I decided I wasn't going to listen to him for a while haha. It didn't bother me too much, but if you didn't read the books, I'm pretty sure a lot of the audience was like....what?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what you meant by that hahaha
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really really good movie too. All YA movies should be like this one. I am so nervous about Divergent and The Maze Runner!
ReplyDeleteI agree, this definitely should be the standard for YA adaptions, especially since there are so many coming up! I have to say I'm not feeling confident about Divergent, but hopefully I'm wrong on that front. And I've not read The Maze Runner yet - I didn't even know there was a movie adaption being made!
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