On Nov. 21st, I joined the masses sitting outside the theater hours before the scheduled showing time of Catching Fire, the newest “Hunger Games” movie. As we all lined up to wait to get into the theater, everyone was talking about how they hoped that its better than the first one and that it would live up to the book, as well as their favorite parts and lines that they want to see in the movie.

Catching Fire is the second installment of Suzanne Collins’ #1 USA Bestseller dystopic series The Hunger Games, featuring the characters of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). In this part of the series Katniss and Peeta and thrown back into the dangerous arena, only this time the stakes are higher.

Prior to seeing the movie, I wasn’t really looking forward to it because I thought the first one was a disappointment that did not live up to my expectations. It didn’t really follow the book, and if you hadn’t read the book then the movie was confusing and hard to follow. Yet during Catching Fire I found myself getting more and more engaged, I laughed, cried, and even let out an angry yell at the end of the movie. Overall I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Yet while watching the first half of the movie I was thinking to myself, “When is this going to end? This is the longest half-hour of my life…when are they going to get to the interesting parts of the movie?” It takes a long time to build up to the actual Games and once the movie made it there, the director kept the action short and sweet in comparison. When the last scene rolled off the screen I had to check my watch to make sure that the movie was actually over.

When the movie was finished everyone was talking. I heard “ Wow, that was so good!” and “That was so much better than the first one.” The only negative comment I heard was “I wish that they had added this part from the book in the movie.”

The movie captured enough of the book that it wasn’t totally a disappointment, and in parts it was actually pretty good, but they still cut out parts from the book I thought were vital to the story, as well skipping other interesting scenes. The book was still better than the movie, as it always seems to be with such good books. But I think fans everywhere will be pleased with how it turned out.

So I’d have to say that the ticket is worth your money and the 2-½ hours of film is worth your time. It could have been better, but I found it much less disappointing than the first.