Last Friday I decided to check out the new 'Hunger Games' movie. I'm fortunate that I live very close to a cinema so I generally know when it's quiet and can pop along in the afternoon if I'm not busy to catch a film. I'd only seen the trailer for Hunger Games but it looked good (don't all trailers?) and added to that it looked very dystopian which I like being generally a miserable and cynical person, well so people say!
Anyway, I was in luck, the cinema was virtually empty, a couple of people trickled in before the film began so it was nice and quiet as I like it. I was aware that the film was part of a trilogy of books but generally knew little else about it, so I settled down to soak it all in with an open but expectant mind.
So the film began in some back water mining town reminiscent of 1950s mid west America. You are quickly introduced to the heroine, her family and potential love interest. Then comes the lottery for the hunger games tournament which you are briefly made aware of at the beginning of the film and if you've seen the trailer you know what is possibly going to transpire. So off the heroine goes to the big city after taking the place of her younger sister. Sat in the very ostentatious carriage of the futuristic train she gets to rub shoulders with her male counterpart contestant and largely indifferent trainer/mentor played by Woody Harrelson. They soon arrive in the big capital city, imaginatively called the same and its down to gourmet banquets and training. Capital city is populated by very baroque people with gaudy hairstyles coloured with hues of electric blue etc.
We get to meet the president of capital city briefly (Donald Sutherland), do some quick training in a futuristic armoury/gym/Dojo and then impress so called 'sponsors' who seem to have little connection with the main story, what they actually sponsor or effect it has is left to the imagination.
Then its onto the Hunter Games, a Tv show where the aim of the game is to stay alive whilst killing the other contestants. The prize if you survive? a pat on the back from the president and a ticket home back to dumps-ville, albeit surrounded by lush country side.
Onto the games, well several kids fall quickly running for rucksacks of goodies or weapons, how stupid, didn't their trainers tell them to run away first, especially the younger ones? So a few quick deaths near the beginning of which you hardly see. This film is no gore fest and our heroine manages to grab a rucksack of goodies in the opening melee chaos and run into the nearby forest.
The other contestants have either done the same or have grouped to form a band of vile college kid type bullies intent on hunting the others down including our heroine. How they bond is unexplained but then this is a film lacking any decent dialogue. We then get a few adventures of the heroine evading the others whilst befriending an expendable character. All of her encounters are manipulated by the Tv station of Capitol city which is housed in a very sterile white a la Matrix department with super sophisticated gadgetry and devices capable of creating very real illusions and monsters to manipulate the games. So, we've gone from back water mid west America to baroque semi futuristic to far out total sci-fi, this is where it all fell down for me, not to mention the very dull games with no tension building at all.
Eventually our heroine the very twee named 'Katniss Everdeen', the others have twee names too, such as Effie and Primrose as well as a selection of old Roman names meets her fellow male contestant and they half fall in love. The games are then manipulated so they can both win it and they proceed to kick ass, the twist being the games again are changed at the end so they have to kill each other, they choose not to. This throws the spanner in the works, they are both announced as joint winner and they go home.
Yep, that's basically it. It doesn't feel very dystopian, the script is almost none existent, there doesn't seem to be any real Machiavellian bad guys and I ended up not caring if the heroine lived or died. Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland who I like as actors are there for an easy pay packet and their characters sadly contribute very little. Maybe the books evoke more but basically this is an action cutesy movie for girls aged 15. The more I thought about it after, the more I disliked it, I was clock watching near the end, a sure sign of something very bad.
Having read ahead about the books, book two contains yet another Hunger Games where the heroine has to fight again, book three is more about revolutionary stuff, I'll definitely avoid.
If you want films of the same dystopian genre go for the still very excellent The Running Man or dig out the original French film called Le Prix Du Danger which I was fortunate to see back in France in 83'. And of course the very excellent Japanese film Battle Royale is more than worth a watch.
Hunger Games is as dull as dishwater with a script that is just as murky. There's no suspense, no character building apart from a little on the heroine and the dystopian world doesn't really work or is portrayed very well. Good dystopia leaves you musing and thinking, this dystopian world reminded me of a Butlin's holiday camp with hyper active redcoats.
In closing, Hunger Games is an awful film that really did leave me mentally starving.
Anyway, I was in luck, the cinema was virtually empty, a couple of people trickled in before the film began so it was nice and quiet as I like it. I was aware that the film was part of a trilogy of books but generally knew little else about it, so I settled down to soak it all in with an open but expectant mind.
So the film began in some back water mining town reminiscent of 1950s mid west America. You are quickly introduced to the heroine, her family and potential love interest. Then comes the lottery for the hunger games tournament which you are briefly made aware of at the beginning of the film and if you've seen the trailer you know what is possibly going to transpire. So off the heroine goes to the big city after taking the place of her younger sister. Sat in the very ostentatious carriage of the futuristic train she gets to rub shoulders with her male counterpart contestant and largely indifferent trainer/mentor played by Woody Harrelson. They soon arrive in the big capital city, imaginatively called the same and its down to gourmet banquets and training. Capital city is populated by very baroque people with gaudy hairstyles coloured with hues of electric blue etc.
We get to meet the president of capital city briefly (Donald Sutherland), do some quick training in a futuristic armoury/gym/Dojo and then impress so called 'sponsors' who seem to have little connection with the main story, what they actually sponsor or effect it has is left to the imagination.
Then its onto the Hunter Games, a Tv show where the aim of the game is to stay alive whilst killing the other contestants. The prize if you survive? a pat on the back from the president and a ticket home back to dumps-ville, albeit surrounded by lush country side.
Onto the games, well several kids fall quickly running for rucksacks of goodies or weapons, how stupid, didn't their trainers tell them to run away first, especially the younger ones? So a few quick deaths near the beginning of which you hardly see. This film is no gore fest and our heroine manages to grab a rucksack of goodies in the opening melee chaos and run into the nearby forest.
The other contestants have either done the same or have grouped to form a band of vile college kid type bullies intent on hunting the others down including our heroine. How they bond is unexplained but then this is a film lacking any decent dialogue. We then get a few adventures of the heroine evading the others whilst befriending an expendable character. All of her encounters are manipulated by the Tv station of Capitol city which is housed in a very sterile white a la Matrix department with super sophisticated gadgetry and devices capable of creating very real illusions and monsters to manipulate the games. So, we've gone from back water mid west America to baroque semi futuristic to far out total sci-fi, this is where it all fell down for me, not to mention the very dull games with no tension building at all.
Eventually our heroine the very twee named 'Katniss Everdeen', the others have twee names too, such as Effie and Primrose as well as a selection of old Roman names meets her fellow male contestant and they half fall in love. The games are then manipulated so they can both win it and they proceed to kick ass, the twist being the games again are changed at the end so they have to kill each other, they choose not to. This throws the spanner in the works, they are both announced as joint winner and they go home.
Yep, that's basically it. It doesn't feel very dystopian, the script is almost none existent, there doesn't seem to be any real Machiavellian bad guys and I ended up not caring if the heroine lived or died. Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland who I like as actors are there for an easy pay packet and their characters sadly contribute very little. Maybe the books evoke more but basically this is an action cutesy movie for girls aged 15. The more I thought about it after, the more I disliked it, I was clock watching near the end, a sure sign of something very bad.
Having read ahead about the books, book two contains yet another Hunger Games where the heroine has to fight again, book three is more about revolutionary stuff, I'll definitely avoid.
If you want films of the same dystopian genre go for the still very excellent The Running Man or dig out the original French film called Le Prix Du Danger which I was fortunate to see back in France in 83'. And of course the very excellent Japanese film Battle Royale is more than worth a watch.
Hunger Games is as dull as dishwater with a script that is just as murky. There's no suspense, no character building apart from a little on the heroine and the dystopian world doesn't really work or is portrayed very well. Good dystopia leaves you musing and thinking, this dystopian world reminded me of a Butlin's holiday camp with hyper active redcoats.
In closing, Hunger Games is an awful film that really did leave me mentally starving.
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