Well, color me pleasantly surprised.

I went to see Catching Fire with the roommate over the weekend. Full disclosure: I have never touched the books. I did not not particularly like The Hunger Games for this reason. Several important parts of the first movie don’t entirely make sense if you haven’t read the books. If my roommate hadn’t been on hand to explain those bits, I would have outright hated it despite loving the performances of some of the actors (Woody Harrelson and Jennifer Lawrence in particular).

Catching Fire fixed so many of the problems I had with The Hunger Games. The pacing felt more even/consistent, and I never felt lost. The movie never beat me over the head with any of the symbolism and didn’t engage in excessive exposition, but information still got presented in a way non-book-reading people like me could follow. Needless to say, the announcement that the same director will handle the two Mockingjay movies makes me very happy.