review by Geir Friestad
The Hunger Games 2012
Watched Mar 21, 2012
Geir Friestad’s review:
Essentially Battle Royale for the Twilight crowd, The Hunger Games makes the leap from the pages to the big screen with the majority of the details intact. Sticking so closely to the source material means that the movie also shares the novel's strengths and weaknesses.
First and foremost, Katniss remains an interesting, reluctant rebel character (Jennifer Lawrence, excellent), while the rest of the cast of characters veer more towards simple archetypes, sometimes wrapped in colorful costumes, sometimes not. The dystopic setting is familiar from everything from Brave New World and onwards. The story itself lurches forward with an uneven pace, much like it did in the book, but still manages to work up a bit of suspense (more so if you're unfamiliar with the book, obviously) and the necessary sense of outrage in the viewer. On the negative side, the book's tendency towards lazy solutions (the protagonists are never faced with the quandary of having to kill a friend, the deus ex machina parachutes, etc) are just as lazy here. The terrible beast that is Chaos Cinema also rears its head in the action sequences. Whether director Gary Ross opts for tight angles, rapid cutting and shakycam to artificially create a sense of action, or just to hide the gore from the film's younger target audience with camera blur remains unclear.
Its less fortunate elements aside, I enjoyed The Hunger Games. It's an engaging yarn, and Ms. Lawrence is just as much of an electrifying screen presence here as she was in Winter's Bone. For sheer visceral power, Battle Royale remains the undisputed champion in this tiny arena, though. But I bet you already knew that.
Update:
I highly recommend checking out Elvis Mitchell's interview with director Gary Ross on his show The Treatment on KCRW! Ross is eloquent and clearly has put a lot of thought into his adaption. Beware of spoilers, though!
Hey, nicely put together review. I'm with you on much of it. My opinion is that if you look at every place you can (reasonably) find fault with the film, behind that your answer every time will be because of it's need to withold for it's younger audience. It's not too fair to compare this to the 18 certificate (or Rated R) Battle Royale poorly, because it is a fantastic acheivement, I think, to cover much of the same ground whilst being aimed largely at kids. This is a kids movie thats really a step above the rest, not an adults movie thats a step below. You point out that the protagonists are never faced with the quandry of having to kill a friend. I do see what you are saying, but again- this exact quandry is exactly what the protagonists face at the climax of the movie. If there had been a similar quandry earlier in the movie, I think it would have taken away from the impact of that final scene because as a viewer you would be like 'well, they've gotten out of this before" whereas what you actually do (if you arent familiar with the novel) is go "well, what the hell are they going to do now?"
Like I say, I don't really disagree with your review, just putting a little counter to it for the sake of conversation. cheers.
Thanks for your comments!
Now, regarding to your point that it's unfair to compare The Hunger Games and Battle Royale because of their different ratings - I get where you're coming from, but I don't agree. While Battle Royale ended up getting a higher rating, it was always intended for a teenage audience - the same as The Hunger Games. Director Kinji Fukasaku was famously upset with the R15 rating it received in Japan, and mischievously encouraged kids to sneak into theaters to see it anyway.
As for your other issue, I actually think having Katniss face a friend in mortal combat earlier would have made the game's final moments much more tense and stronger, because it would have introduced an element of uncertainty (having already killed a friend, will she kill Peeta too?). But since the story consistently sidesteps difficult choices like that throughout, you expect it to do the same at the end. That being said, I do like the "sticking it to The Man"-quality of Katniss' solution!