Movie review: The Hunger Games
The story is set in the future where the whole world, Panem, is divided into a dozen districts - it used to be a baker’s dozen, but the uprising of the inhabitants was nullified by the incineration of district 13 (apparently the number will always be unlucky). Each year, in lieu of beating the districts into submission, the bad guys (aka the Capital) pluck one boy and one girl from each district to beat each other into submission (to death really) while everyone else watches the live broadcast in streaming video on their mobile devices (Not really – no one paid the cable or phone bills for a long time so the people have to communicate the old-fashioned way - by birds).
Katniss Everdeen, played by the curvaceous Jennifer Lawrence, and her love-struck sidekick Peeta, played by some kid nobody has ever heard of, work together to overcome tremendous odds by surviving the game-makers’ sadistic arena and change the rules of the games forever.
Lawrence is a gem and seems to have read the book and studied the script, which made up for her supporting cast of child actors who might as well have been reading from cue cards. Lenny Kravitz was an ample Cinna, Katniss’ stylist extraordinaire (As good as any singer-turned-actor). Elizabeth Banks was ‘eff’-ing spot-on as Effie, the grandiose escort of the district 12 tributes.
Woody Harrelson’s agent probably couldn’t believe his great fortune last year when he got the call that the producer was looking for someone who could wear a wig and stagger around in a drunken stupor during every scene (Finally, all those years of humiliation in seeing his #1 client show up for auditions in a drunken stupor had paid off!). Although he could do it in his sleep (and quite possibly did in some scenes), Harrelson was a convincing Haymitch, mentor to the district 12 tributes.
The casting of Donald Sutherland as President Snow was sheer brilliance – assuming the script called for a disheveled and bewildered Alzheimer’s patient who had wandered away from the comfort of his warm milk and medications. I seriously doubt his scraggly beard and sad, hound-dog eyes were what author Suzanne Collins had in mind, but perhaps he was available and cheap to come by.
The only glaring plot-hole was that 2 black tributes were “randomly” chosen from a district comprised mostly of whites (the demographic makeup was confirmed by scenes of isolated riots in their district). Apparently whites get preferential treatment in post-apocalyptic Panem too. I can hear the Chris Rock voice-over now: “If you work hard and keep your head low, you can make it – also, it doesn’t hurt if you make nice with the white folks.”
Most of the first 30 to 45 minutes was comprised of bouncy camera work that was presumably to resemble intensity, but felt more like hand-held cinema from the kids of Super 8. It worked more to induce nausea a la Blair Witch Project than create an intense tone. The musical score was excellent and the costumes were memorable (think Oscar nominations). The special effects were not-so-special, but I give a nod to the game makers’ three dimensional workbench (I have GOT to get me one of those!).
The bottom line: Very good, but not great. The movie is worth seeing with or without having read the book. It is only the first of three books in the saga and Hollywood, being Hollywood, will probably split the final story in two. Hopefully, the inevitable sequels will have a new director to clean the editing and give the stories a more epic feel that they deserve. I don’t think that director Tim Burton will be available however, judging from the scores of previews of his other films he appears to be cranking out at a pace that would rival Adam Sandler.
