At the time of seeing the movie I hadn’t read the book so I was extra excited about seeing it. The idea of discovering new mythologies and captivating stories is always pleasing.
After seeing the movie my overall impression is…..”meh”. Don’t get me wrong it’s a good movie but it had so much opportunity to have been better.
I was looking forward to some emotional conflicts but was left disappointed. Kids killing kids is never funny but I was anticipating that uncomfortable feeling of taking the side of the main character Katniss and justifying why it might be okay for her to kill her peers.
THE STORY OR LACK OF IT
The Hunger Games is a competition organised by a controlling State “The Capital” in a newfound country in the not too far future. The games are organised every year to prove to the districts outside the capital that it still has power over them. And yes, kids aged twelve to eighteen have to fight to the death.
A very interesting premise but one of my main problems with the film was that it failed to explain all these properly. I started listening to the audio book yesterday and I got a much better understanding in one minute.
GOOD BUT ALMOST GREAT
Although people compare the Hunger Games to the Japanese film Battle Royale, they are quite different. In fact, the Hunger Games could have been much more hard hitting.
These were my main problems, the kid on kids’ violence was not enough and the atmosphere surrounding the games was absent. When I talk about the violence, I don’t mean gore per say but raw human instinct behavior.
Human beings are very different at the point confronting death and I didn’t see this enough. We do crazy shit to survive but the children died too soft if you ask me. Or the conflicts surrounding their deaths were too soft. That’s why I had a small disconnect with the kids, which are the main subjects here.
Secondly, apart from showing a few districts outside the capital during the games to catch reaction shots, I felt it wasn’t done enough. I didn’t see any hope or lack of it, cheering, and excitement from the audiences in the capital especially. All that talk about getting sponsors just felt undercooked in my opinion.
IN THE END
I would definitely recommend it and I would give it a three out of five stars. If there were more moving scenes like when a particular character died I would have been more enthusiastic but I am still looking forward to the sequel.
