Hunger Games Review


Movie: Hunger Games
By: Tyrath
Date: March 26, 2012

Hunger Games, from book to movie.

Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor! More and more filmmakers try to bring successful novels to live on the big screens. Some are a great hit others while are better to be forgotten. The book written by Suzanne Collins (who also adapted the story for the movie by herself) sold over 800.000 copies. The movie directed by Gary Ross, is thought to be a great success for the sequel "Catching Fire" is already planned for 2013. But will the success from the original books be captured and fully extend the expectation of the readers?

The story takes place in a future time where after catastrophic events America has collapsed. 12 districts have been formed and are now known as Panem. Each year 2 tributes are selected from each district, 1 boy and 1 girl between the age of 12 and 18. They will be trained and are forced to enter the Hunger games. A game to the death, 24 enter only 1 survivor. During a selection the 74th Hunger games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to save her younger sister from entering the games. Katniss is the first volunteer from district 12 and she is selected together with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson). Together they will be made fit for the games and need to get promoters to invest in them. As the games start so does the killing. 24 enter only one will win.

The Hunger Games

The trailers were very promising and I was looking forward to seeing this movie. The location is well suited for the movie and is shot in North Carolina USA. Some creatures from the movie: Mockingjay (only seen on a pin Katniss got for her younger sister), is a bird that can mimic voices and sing back parts of songs. Tracker Jackers, a genetically-altered wasps witch sting causes large swelling and hallucinations. Wolf Mutations, a wolf-like creature that were released at the end of the Hunger Games. These creatures fit the mood and fit how they play their role except the last one. They could have made them much better..

The Hunger Games

The theme of the movie is not that original, it made me think a lot about "Battle Royale". Although in my opinion the story was very slow and too much time was spend on the introduction of just Katniss, before the real game actually begins. The action scenes were very poor, more rolling around than a real fight. Also the fights were hard to follow, because of the extreme extra camera movements. You see some wounds here and there but never really see them get inflicted. The fights that you see are very quick and over before you can think about who will win this fight. The final battle is also very strange, for someone who easily breaks another ones neck he seems to have a lot of trouble inflicting any damage on Katniss. Luckily we have the dramatic love that can make anything possible. I thought there was too much attention on the drama rater then the characters themselves.

The Hunger Games

As I don‘t know why the press keeps telling us the movie is an almost perfect adaption to its original source is a straight up mystery for me. Where you can clearly read the impact one‘s death makes, you won‘t see it translated in its movie form. The Hunger Games will end up getting popular no doubt, but for me it isn‘t doing anything special. We have seen this before and done better. Battle Royale is only one example, but likely almost never to have been seen by the US main culture. There were a lot of strange choices made within the movie and it doesn‘t help that the movie keeps feeling like there was way more possible.

The Hunger Games

So what we have in the end is a movie with a big hype and which for the most people it fills in nicely. But if you are like me and liked the books, go read the books. The movie is marketed as a Twilight killer and it means that this movie doesn‘t raise the bar that high intellectually. It feels sloppy and dull in the end which is a shame if they had removed the PG13 rating things would have been a lot more challenging to watch. For what we are left with is a movie that tries hard but falls flat in the long run.


2/5




Movie

Hunger Games

Title

Hunger Games

Director

Gary Ross

Country

USA

Year

2012

Cast

Jennifer Lawrence, Stanley Tucci, Josh Hutcherson and Donald Sutherland