User review: The Hunger Games


03/24/12 03:19pm
3 Comments

I came into the cinema with only a vague idea of what was going to happen- from whispers and snippets which had regularly spammed my dashboard on Tumblr. I hadn’t read the books, but the odds are in the favour that I will be reading them as soon as Amazon delivers them.

The film captivated me from beginning to end, and i spent about as much time with tears rolling down my cheeks, or brewing behind my eyes. That, my friends, is how a film are meant to be.

I cried because of the spectacular acting.
I cried because of the story.
I cried because it was everything Harry Potter should have been.

I loved how the lead character, for the first time in my memory, was a woman who kicked ass, who was the one who saved the guys butt- but wasn’t overt about it. . She was strong. She wasn’t completely glamerous. She was stunning. She was real.

I agree with everything the story stood for: for love, for life, for not killing unless you have to. For strength in numbers, and not being afraid to defy the odds, and the authority if you are doing what you believe is right. It struck at my core, and contorted my heart through every twist and turn the plot took.

The acting was phenominal, and truly believable. It truly has brought to light a new crop of actors who are brimming with talent. The soundtrack as well, was understated, and did exactly what it needed to.

If there is such a thing as a TUNE- as in a fantastic song, then surely there should be such a thing as a FILM- a fantastic movie.

if there is such accreditation, the Hunger Games is truly a FILM.

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  • Masterblaster911

    If you are going to make a movie about children being forced to kill each other for the enjoyment of the public, I would think that the tone one would reach for would be something more along the lines of Shindler’s List or at least a tone of some satirical value. And you would think that the angst, fear, disgust and overall awfulness for the main characters would be a focal point. You would think the blood lust of the watching masses would form a visceral sense of at least moderate horror that would serve as a backdrop to all of this. And most of all you would think that children, even children raised to expect that they might someday have to enter a tournament like this, would struggle with a conflict between fear, innocence, longing for some sense of decency and trying to sort through the confusion to survive.

    It is something of a stretch to imagine a society in which everyone loves seeing children murder each other. That in itself is a plot line the brings a distorted feeling with it. The movie tries to hide that, or at least neglects to even attempt to address that, by layering this movie in and American Idol feeling. There is no sense of outrage. There is hardly a whiff of the sense of all of this in the time we spend with the characters. They are wooden and whitewashed. The most we get in the way of a sense of their overarching dilemma is a few shallow feeling comments and silent looks of stoic concern.

    The movie seems to present the material in this fashion to make us forget that we are watching children kill each other. It is as though we are watching running man – only with 8 year olds. Who doesn’t want to watch a movie where adorable little boys and girls snap each other necks? Or dogs run them down and eat them alive…?

    If a movie like this is to be done it cannot avoid the moral content without seeming shallow and absently depraved. That is this movie. The core is not attempted. It is like red tails meets running man.

    I found it absent, vapid and obviously lacking in any real value. It was also a little sick because it didn’t even bother for tone whilst presenting the viewer with a mind bending plot.

    In short, wooden acting, shallow presentation and not at all smart.

    • Sammi

      The thing youre missing here is that people cant just not watch it. Like what Gale says at the beginning, if nobody watched it then the Capitol wouldnt have power. The districts watch because they want to see their tributes do well, they watch out of respect and in the same sort ‘I cant look away’ that we get with horror movies for example. You know something awful is going to happen, but you just cant pull your eyes away.
      The residents of the Capitol watch because it’s entertainment. These people to them are scum of the earth, and its on about the same par as dog fighting or bear baiting to the rich Capitol people. They gamble on it and enjoy the show as a way of putting the districts in their place.

      I think you might have missed a lot of the movie looking at your comment. Or at the very least failed completely to read between the lines and look at the film in an intellectual manner, gaining insight into the story and the characters without having to be explicitly shown every little detail. I personally didnt see the plot as ‘mind bending’ at all, and the fact that you do makes me feel like you might be incredibly naive about the state of humanity and the way the human mind functions. Awful things have happened all the way through history, there are plenty of people that get kicks out of seeing other people/animals get hurt. To say that this film and its concept doesnt ring at all true with todays society is very naive, and it is that exact part of the story that gives the story its chilling undertones.

      Watch it again. Read the books. Then you’ll understand.

    • Ollie Hogg

      I also believe that you missed a couple of things in the film:

      1) The arena, for me, is essentially full of moral ambiguity: it’s Darwinism taken almost too far. It’s fight or flight, except the option of flight is not available to the Tributes. I believe genuinely being placed inside the arena would completely change everything that seems rational.

      2) We DO watch people suffering on television, reality TV is based on that alone. We watch Big Brother in the hopes that a fight will break out, we watch The X Factor hoping for our least favourite contestant’s dreams to be crushed. We’re so far removed from the people in this world that, no matter what happens to them, we don’t feel as if they’re real and I believe THAT is how The Capitol see the Tributes.

      I think the whole film begs the question of whether you’d actually watch The Games. The moral judgement is made very clear in the deaths of Rue and even Cato, and yet the extent to which Katniss needs to survive for her sister’s sake is also underlined. Reading the books might give you more clarity in terms of the morality surrounding the Games.