| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/19/2012 : 14:26:34
It is a sad irony that Suzanne Collins, author of the phenomenally successful Hunger Games lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. I'm in no way suggesting any connection between the deranged murders of schoolchildren with the codified child killings that form the themes of her trilogy. Or franchise as I guess we must call it.
The first, The Hunger Games has recently been released as a film, with the other two in pre-production, and vid-games already here. Actually, the film unfolds as much if not more like a game than a drama - I haven't read the book/s, so don't know how much Collins as co-screenwriter has modified her story.
The result is certainly a premise that presages more, but - though it's got plenty of chances to ask significant questions - definitely lacks the dimension that great sci-fi builds on.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a big digi-game fan. My taste runs more to the HOG variety [OK, OK I'm practically an addict], but I've played more than my fair share of adventure stuff, too.
But whatever they are - they're not films.
Director/co-writer Gary Ross [Pleasantville, Seabiscuit] has tried to fulfil at least some requirements of drama. If Collins was responsible for any of the gems of humour, good for her! I tend to think they were the addition of Ross and others.
OK, where are we? What is this bizarre place? It's a land only partly recognizable as Earth. There are echoes and homages and borrowings from literary and cine-classics created by HG Wells, Aldous Huxley and Ridley Scott. Visual evocations of Nazi rallies, the modern Olympics, and the childhood game of hide and seek. And since the whole darn shooting match forms the content of all national television, throw in some Truman Show, too.
So we're promised action, and action we get. Most especially it's the actors who keep you watching when credibility runs off into the woods. Such woods they are! Each tree, for good or ill, might as well be whispering "watch out!"
Apart from the leads, Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks provide the most engaging, suitably OTT cameos, with kudos due to hair and makeup, too. I'm betting Toby Jones's footage lies amoldering on the cutting-room-floor, but the versatile Woody Harrelson scores big as Hamitch, a deceptively inert but knowledgeable helper/mentor.
For helpers sure are required given a premise that kids from each of 12 Districts in this land - [ostensibly a post-apocalyptic North America, reconstituted as a tyrannical Capitol served by its out-liers] - become Tributes and are pitted against each other for the sole purpose of killing them.
This periodic adventure lightens the load of the soul-destroying monotony and destitution which form their lives. Each District cheers on their representatives as though it were a football match.
It may seem as though there never are or will be winners, but we find out that back in the day, Hamitch was, though it's a moot point what exactly he won. Oh, yeah, he's still alive.
Hey - does that make the Hunger Games a bizarre form of population control in a land of dwindling resources?
So, yeah, the acting. Most especially we're talking about well-deserved flavor of the month Jennifer Lawrence. Unlike Silver Linings Playbook, she isn't given much of an acting challenge here, but she inhabits both Katniss Everdene and the ersatz dangerous sci-fi genre with confidence.
Katniss lives in the coal-mining District 12 with dowdy mom and cute younger sis. When the young girl is chosen to fight for her life, Katniss volunteers to take her place as the female tribute. Her male counterpart is Peeta.
How these two navigate from hunter to prey and back again forms the story's somewhat predictable journey. Suffice to say they don't follow any yellow brick roads.
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| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| randall |
Posted - 12/22/2012 : 17:44:51
I too was amazed that nobody opened a thread when the film opened. I *have* read the books, all three of them.
I liked this flick too. I agree that it's a pale reflection of BATTLE ROYALE, which makes these same "points" much more in your face. But heck: it's every bit as good a translation as was the first HARRY POTTER: not everything from the source material, but most of the fun stuff. And once you tone it down a tad, you get a HUGE reaction from teen- and pre-teen audiences: the books have been gospel for the past couple of years. There's some revolutionary urge that's bubbling under, and it will be interesting to follow as these kids grow older.
I loved Jennifer Lawrence in this one, even more than in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. [I thought she was gamely struggling against ennui-inducing material in WINTER'S BONE. There, I said it!] She has a hero's twinkle, b/c she knows what will be required of her in the next two [or is it three?] flicks: not just Joan of Arc, but...ah, I must remain mum.
The only disappointment I can recall [I saw it last spring] was the depiction of Katniss's "Girl On Fire" costume in the opening pageant, which I found cinematically underwhelming, and my god, we have all these digital helpers these days! But if you're going to wait for the movies to finish the story for you, Baffy, I submit the first one made a mighty good start. |
| Sean |
Posted - 12/19/2012 : 21:26:53
Kinda surprised we didn't already have a thread for this one. 
I liked it. Not up to the calibre of Battle Royale though (which quite correctly rates half a point higher on IMDb). The main thing wrong with The Hunger Games is this poster here... let's see, one of them must survive and the rest must die... so who might be the survivor? Could it be... humour me, I'm grasping at straws here... could it actually be THE WOMAN IN THE POSTER WHO SURVIVES?!?!???? No way, Hollywood would never spoiler it like that would they? Would they!?! Oh yeah, of course they did, they always do.
If it wasn't for the lack of tension due to the fact the result was a foregone conclusion I may have actually given this an 8.
7.5/10
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