Marval Movie

The Hunger Games is a move where you already know that you'll have to sign up to a few other movies later. It is one of those franchise movies that are being churned out one after the other these days. So the question is whether the characters are engaging, the world will be either enjoyable or interesting to explore and the story is something that hooks you the first time and want to see continued.

A girl named Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) is living her life with one little sister and mother, they get by with her help from hunting with a bow. Her sister is having bad dreams because she is afraid that she will be picked for the seventy-fourth Hunger Game (not the seventy-fifth or seventieth, hmm?). A tournament where one boy and one girl, from the lower districts (they live in District 12), from the ages of twelve to eighteen must compete in a kill or be killed tournament.

So comes the day of the Hunger Games choosing and Katniss sister is chosen so she volunteers herself for the games. The other contestant is chosen in a boy named Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).

The upper class areas are like the people in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Where fashion has turned truly outrageous, heaps of makeup and over-saturated colored hair-dye. I don't really believe that people will get to a stage where they will look like this but its a fun look to see in a movie.

Woody Harelson plays their trainer, a man that has seen all the inhumanity of these games and has detached himself from caring, but still sees where there is hope in Katniss. He also dresses the least flamboyantly, probably because he has the most sense. Stanley Tucci is a parallel, or parody of a news anchor covering these Hunger Games. An unrecognizable Elizabeth Banks is their...I actually don't know what she's there for, but she is someone drenched in the "high class world" and is deplored by anything unmannerly.

The Hunger Games takes place in a dome? I think? Where the controllers are able to manipulate everything from the time of day to the weather and even set the forest on fire to shooting fireballs. Its basically a deadly Truman Show. Pure and simple, last one standing wins, beyond that there aren't really many rules, you can kill the other players by any means you can. They of course have their specialties and preferred weapons of choice which are supplied to them i.e. knives, swords etc.

The movies golden goose is indeed Jenifer Lawrence. She is one of the brightest rising stars of today. She is so engaging as Katniss and has to pull-off a lot of different emotions. From fear, to likable, to brooding and fierce and Laurence is able to ground them all under the roof of one character. But also she is given a character to work with, this isn't the stereotypical blank slate that a lot of authors/filmakers would write so that whoever reads or watches her can project themselves onto. She is defined and has a personality. Why do I have to praise this as something special?

Donald Sutherland plays President Snow. He is a man who seems to know human nature the best and sees the potential that Katnnis can bring and fears it. I wanted to see more of him and I look forward to seeing more of him in the sequel.

Constantly in the movie is the shaky cam. Gone seem the days where we would get nice smooth camerawork and in are the days where you can put a camera in the hands of any guy with shaky hands and let him run around with the camera. There seems to be no scene where a still or smooth image is called for.

A book can be however long the author wants it to be, a movie usually has to be between ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes. Because of this there's just so much information you can fit into it. There are lots of little details that went unanswered through the movie, like where exactly is this Hunger Games stadium? Why are there district for the poor? Is the entire world like this or is it just the country? Apparently their explored and fleshed out in the book but I went to see a movie and shouldn't have to pick up the book to understand the movie. There aren't any plot holes, well not ones the lack of details create, but it makes the viewing ride a lot more bumpy than it needs to be.

However good this movie is or how popular the books are there will still be two words that hang over this franchise and they are Battle Royal. Battle Royal is a masterpiece, which I would recommend to most people. And of course it is also about teens being put in an environment and forced to kill each-other. While Battle Royal was a masterpiece this movie is not.

The Hunger Games is another franchise movie aimed at elderly teenagers, or "Young Adult" as it's referred to. Luckily though the books are apparently good and this world and themes that it explores and exploits are something with texture and feel to it. If this will indeed be the time of book franchises being adapted into franchised movies we might as well have good ones and this is indeed one of them.

Rating: 3 stars out of 4