The Hunger Games was originally the first book of a series
written by Suzanne Collins. Over time, it's developed a large and loyal
fan base since its debut in 2008. With the film of the same name coming
out, the people at Lionsgate surely hopes that this fan base gravitates
towards the theaters to see the big screen translation in hopes of
making it into a movie franchise.
Like the book, the film that
goes by the same name tells the story of a teenage girl named Katniss
(Jennifer Lawrence) who lives with her mother and her sister Prim
(Willow Shields). Katniss and her family live in what is now known as
Panem, but was once called North America. In Panem, the powers that be
hold an event once a year where one boy and one girl from each of the
twelve districts compete in a battle to the death competition known as
the Hunger Games.
These games have been put together by the
government of Panem as punishment for an attempted revolution that took
place nearly eighty years earlier. This nationally televised event
forces these teenagers to go against each other until only one is left
standing. Katniss is one of the 24 kids enlisted in this year's event,
which is the 74th occurrence of the games. Unlike the others who were
randomly selected, she actually volunteers in order to take the place of
her younger sister who had been selected instead. Like all of her other
opponents, her only goal is to somehow make it all the way to the end.
The
Hunger Games is a movie that will be familiar to most due to the fact
that it's based on a novel that many have read and the fact that we've
seen this stuff before. There have been quite a few films similar to
this that have been released for the big screen. With that being said,
it did have some potential to be a fantastic movie based on the promise
that it showed early on. The only problem here is that it never reached
the heights that it could have.
One of the negatives about The
Hunger Games was the lack of character development. That hurt the movie
in my eyes, because it didn't allow me to get into the actual
characters. Almost all of the kids were nameless and faceless, so when
one of them would die off, it would just feel empty and meaningless. If
you're going to try to use a couple of dramatic scenes featuring people
dying, it would help to have the characters be of some significance by
learning something about them.
Character development would have
helped this movie in particular, because there are so many dry spots and
empty scenes where nothing happens. They could have easily taken these
opportunities when nothing is actually going on to develop these guys
and get the audience emotionally invested in them. That would have made
the movie and its events more dramatic and engrossing, but they decided
to go in another route.
A good portion of The Hunger Games shows
certain characters sleeping, eating or sitting down. There literally
might have been more scenes of them sleeping than there were of them
actually fighting. If I wanted to see someone do any of that, I would
just go and get married or something. These scenes repeatedly killed any
momentum the movie looked like it was beginning to show anytime they
came up. Like most people, I go to see a movie to be entertained and
those things aren't entertaining to watch. You had a few good actors
here and I think they could have been used much better.
This
biggest flaw in The Hunger Games wasn't that it was terrible, the
biggest flaw was that they just didn't do enough with what they had. For
example, Gary Ross could have used the first quarter of the movie to
develop the characters and show off some of the beautiful scenery that
we don't get to see enough of. Instead we get thrown right into the
movie and then a bunch of nothing follows behind it. The film itself
ended up feeling like it was too long, because of things like this and
it didn't need have so many empty areas.
The truth is The Hunger
Games is a rated R movie that's toned down to fit what is required to
obtain a PG-13 rating. They left a lot of stuff out that should have
been included in order to allow their target audience to see it and the
film is hindered in some important parts because of this. The violence
was far too tame and much of it wasn't even shown. It's basic and can be
viewed as The Running Man for younger audiences.
There were also
some chances for some big ideas and themes to be examined, but that
didn't happen either. Because of the way The Hunger Games is structured,
it's difficult to get into it the way you're supposed to. The film
story could have been much deeper, much stronger and more meaningful.
Instead, what they did was keep the story very thin and on a straight
and uncomplicated path.
It's also filled with some of those basic
and familiar people who you're used to seeing in movies. There's the
bully/jock types who are basically the best group of competitors in the
field, the loser that no one believes in, the black guy who's also a top
contender and there's the drunk. The drunk is an odd character that's
played by Harrelson. He's never actually drunk after the first couple of
scenes that he's in and is perfectly sober and fine throughout the rest
of it. I know he might have been a drunk in the book, but that portion
of the character is made completely irrelevant in the movie.
The
Hunger Games isn't bad enough for me to completely rip it, but it simply
wasn't that good and has very little to offer. I can't fault the actors
on this one since most of them did what was asked of them. All the
blame goes on the director of the film and the writers. There were
several things that could have been done to save the movie, but they
ignored most of those. Hopefully, I won't be saying the same thing about
the sequels.
Score: 2/5
Rating: PG-13
Director: Gary Ross
Cast:
Jennifer Lawrence
Josh Hutcherson
Woody Harrelson
Liam Hemsworth
Elizabeth Banks
Lenny Kravitz
Stanley Tucci
Donald Sutherland
Amandla Stenberg
Jennifer Lawrence
Josh Hutcherson
Woody Harrelson
Liam Hemsworth
Elizabeth Banks
Lenny Kravitz
Stanley Tucci
Donald Sutherland
Amandla Stenberg
Film Length: 142 minutes
Release Date: March 23, 2012
Distributor: Lionsgate
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