By now, even people who don’t usually go to movies have probably gone to see The Hunger Games. What’s even more surprising is that this is the rare film that deserves to be a mega-hit. Every once and a while, audiences decide to stop rewarding crap (pretty much 80 percent of the movies this year that have crossed the 100 million mark), and actually turn out in droves to watch a sharper, darker, more soulful film than the usual bombast. I’m not quite saying The Hunger Games is this year’s The Dark Knight or Inception, but it’s very good…and much better than I thought it would be.
What Works: I watched this movie AFTER the back-to-back viewing experience of John Carter, Mirror Mirror, and Wrath of the Titans (reviews next week for those), and liked it more than those three movies combined. All the mistakes Hollywood’s usual big budget fare makes—-no characters, motivations that don’t make sense, CGI overload at the expense of genuine suspense, and a disturbing lack of genuine emotion—-this film doesn’t, and that’s become high praise these days. I’m a big fan of Jennifer Lawrence from Winter’s Bone anyway, and she’s excellent here. Not to mention ace-level backup from the always-reliable Woody Harrelson. But the real MVP is the totally-awake filmmaking by director Gary Ross. You can tell this film isn’t going to be another Hollywood sleepwalker (again, Wrath of the Titans) in the first five minutes, and by the end some audience members had cried, shouted, or been otherwise floored by the film’s honest suspense. Also, I find this movie works just fine as a standalone film instead of just the first part of the trilogy…of course…
What Doesn’t Work: With a trilogy film, we lose some of the suspense. Even though the movie does a great job of making you think Katniss (the main character) could die, we all know she won’t. And the fact that a few of the kids-in-a-competition-to-kill-other-kids are actually quite bad, somewhat takes away from the brutality of what we’re watching. It’s a little hypocritical to ask us to find this all so savage and unbearable, and then make it so easy to root for a handful of these kids to get what’s coming to them. Still though, these are very minor problems and ones that are to be expected. I’m surprised the movie takes as many risks as it does, so I can’t really fault it for making things a little too black-and-white morally.
What I Would Have Done Differently: I’m sure the books—-which I have not read—-really delve into the psychology of certain characters, but it would have been nice to get to know some of the other kids competing in the Hunger Games. We only really get to know Katniss and her love interest, with all the rest largely indistinguishable. It might have been nice to give each of them more of a personality, but I understand that a lot had to be cut out for time considerations.
I must confess I was waiting for your review on this one, no, I have not seen the movie but now I can somewhat sheepishly go see it.
Why Sheepishly? Because I read the books and I hoped that the movie would do a better job.
A trilogy for the sake of creating three books, the first one is the best, the second unnecessary and the third was disappointing to the point of wanting to send a personal note to the author and ask WTF?
So I am a little biased, I only read the books because I saw the movie preview earlier this year. I am glad Jennifer did not disappoint.
I haven’t read the books, so your experience might be much different than mine (although I hear fans of the books are enjoying the movie, especially Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss), and it’s true that this movie looks especially good after you’ve just watched John Carter, Mirror Mirror, and Wrath of the Titans. Still, the fact that this was able to escape the mistakes that so many blockbusters make really bodes well for the chances of adults enjoying it.
Although it’s funny you should say that the third book is really disappointing because other people have told me that too, and aren’t looking forward to the idea of the last book being split into two movies—-as is the rumor—-a la Harry Potter 7 Part 1 and 2, and Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2.
Oh, I bet they will try to break this one into six movies if they could, I mean they are making a Hangover 3. Need I say more.
Harry Potter #7 part 1 & 2 was a total disappointment and splitting it was unnecessary, as for Twilight, well if I hated Harry Potter you know Twilight is no where on the radar.
Spoiler Alert: On your CGI praise, you might be disappointed watching the second movie, as for the third, let’s just say she wrote most of the book the month she paid for her subscription to World of Warcraft, the whole book was a cartoon.
But once again, I hope the director edits the heck out of the books in the adaptations. In an effort to justify my position on this “high horse” I plan to watch the movie next week maybe.
Cheers
Finally saw the movie, and as I hoped they did a much better job than what I read.
Cheers.