The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Lawrence, 2013)

Sequels of big-budget franchise films can be tough to get right for a mass audience. People who fell in love with the first film usually want that same exciting feeling again for the second film, which is unfortunately rare for many franchises. The first Pirates of the Caribbean film felt like the start of a exciting new series of movies but the franchise quickly devolved after introducing too many one-dimensional characters and unnecessarily complex plots in the sequels. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire had huge expectations riding on it, with 2012’s The Hunger Games becoming a huge, worldwide box office phenomenon and turning Jennifer Lawrence into America’s Sweetheart. Catching Fire not only had to please fans of The Hunger Games book series by Suzanne Collins, it also had to give non-book readers enough to properly enjoy it without prior knowledge of what was to come. As someone who was a fan of the books, I can say that director Francis Lawrence has created what may be the best possible adaptation of Catching Fire imaginable.