Movie Review: The Hunger Games

       Confession time, I did not read the book, but this review is not about the book, it's about the movie.  When I first saw the trailer I instantly became excited, A battle to the death in the woods starring Mystique from First Class, sounds awesome.  Then came the day I went to see it, the show I originally wanted to see was sold out, raising my hopes even more. 

       Then the previews started playing, this is where my worrying started.  I you haven't figured it out yet, movie previews are carefully selected to match the movie you are watching so they can raise awareness of a movie you'll eventually want to see anyway.  The previews for this movie were another Stephanie Myer movie, a Twilight, and Titanic anniversary, strange choices for what I thought was going to be an action movie.

       The movie starts off a bit slow, but sets up this world of poverty where the people are oppressed, so far so good.  We meet our heroine Katniss, who  is a skilled archer living with her mother and sister.  So far so good.  However as the movie drags on Katniss becomes more and more boring.  This is a major problem with the movie, the characters for the most part are not fleshed out, and the ones they do flesh out are boring.

       Enter the plot, in the movie world each of the 12 districts of this dystopian future must offer up one male and one female as tribute to compete in the "Hunger Games" a fight to the death used as punishment for a rebellion years ago.  First off, this is stupid, when I saw the trailer I thought it was just the progression of society, kinda like the movie Gamer, instead the government is punishing the masses, who can simply refuse, rise up again, or any number of things that make more sense.

       Next is the character designs, for a good half hour of the movie everyone looks normal, enter Elizabeth Banks...First off if your gonna get a beautiful woman like Elizabeth Banks, don't dress her up like Krusty the Clown.  Second, why does everyone in the future dress like Lady Gaga?  This is probably my biggest issue with the movie, I can't take it serious when I'm trying not to laugh at everything.  The plot is fairly dark, or at least grey, that is to say it isn't light, do you understand?  it's hard to put that into words.  It deserves a dark tone, dress everyone in muted colors not glitter.  Whats more is thanks to this they took Stanley Tucci, an amazing actor who I think deserves more praise, known for his dramatic and the occational comedic roles, and turned him in to Seacrest, a celebrity who doesn't deserve fame.  Then you have the names, Katniss and Peeta seem somewhat normal, but then you get white Kato and Foxface, seriously Foxface?  It's like the movie doesn't fully understand its target audience.

             Next up is the second hero, Peeta played by Josh Hutcherson.  First off, if by some random chance Josh Hutcherson actually reads this I would like to apologize.  Hutcherson seems to be trying to become an action star as of late, with this, Red Dawn, and that counterfieting movie, but sadly since I'm only a few years older than him I'm only able to see him as a child star, which is what he was when I was growing up.  Sure like Joeseph Gordon-Levitt this will fade in time (I'm hoping before I see Red Dawn), but when I saw this movie the first time he was still the kid from Zathura.  To his credit he seemed to try and it was more the writers' and the director's fault he was such a dumb character.  In the movie he is portrayed as a sort of stalker who has a thing for Katniss, who he betrays almost instantly once the contest starts.  He also has almost no on-screen chemistry with Jennifer Lawrence which kinda ruins the whole love interest things.  His character also has some of the dumbest plot points associated with him.  Such as; "He's really strong, he once lifted an entire bag of flour over his head.", or his retarded frosting camouflage, seriously his district is too poor to afford electricity, but they can have cakes that look like the woods, that they live in.  

       Now for some minor critiques, starting with Foxface.  This character was stupid, useless, and whenever she was on screen I couldn't help but say WTF?!?  For those of you who still haven't seen the movie, Foxface is a girl who shows up randomly throughout the movie, grabs something, then leaves.  In fact her death is because she grabs something she thought was food, but turns out to be poisonous, so she dies off camera.

       Next is the violence, this seems to be the biggest complaint from parents, and personally was the highest selling point for me, however there were times that I didn't know how to feel about it.  For example there is this scene at the beginning of the contest where the older kids who were trained since birth for this contest are killing almost everyone else.  The camera was really shaky during this scene so it was hard to follow what was happening, but what I did see was a guy who clearly wasn't 18 killing a bunch of kids, and at one point it is implied he decapitates a kid who is hiding behind some supplies.  Then at the end this same guy starts to cry when his alliance is dead, and for some reason the poor baker's son who is too weak to run manages to overpower the kid who was TRAINED SINCE BIRTH for this competition.  Kinda lame.

       Next is the dog/bear/wolf/whatever, my problem here isn't the creatures themselves since it is established they were created specifically for the contest, but rather in their execution.  The contest was taking too long so they released the hounds, this is a Simpsons gag, not something you expect in a movie about kids killing each other.

       Next is what I though should have been a controversy, but apparently isn't.  There is a scene in the movie, after the little black girl dies (Not trying to be racist here, just don't remember her name).  We then see her district, which is entirely made up of black people (again not trying to be racist).  A man who I assume was her father then starts a riot in the city, and soon everyone else begins to riot.  Eventually the military steps in and turns fire hoses on them, this to me was a bit racist, and here is why.  My brother read the book and said no such district exists, furthermore in The Dark Knight Rises there was a controversy over the villains name and plan, some believed it was a nod to Mitt Romney's company.  If one of Batman's villains, who was created in the 90s can cause contraversy with his name, why didn't a street full of black people being beaten and shot with a fire hose?

       Lastly is the love triangle.  What love triangle?  Good question, I didn't even know there was one, but my brother is a fan of the series and told me about it, apparently the guy they kept showing sitting in a field the whole time was in fact important.  First off, why does every movie aimed towards young adults need a love triangle? isn't one forced romantic interest enough?  I guess not.  However it you feel the need to do one, at least make it so the audience who didn't read the book actually know it is there.

       This movie did have a redeeming factor though, no not Jennifer Lawrence in tight clothes, which I'll admit was good, but it was a character.  A character who had a normal name, was well cast, was cynical in a cynical world, and ultimately didn't seem to belong in this movie.  I'm of course referring to Woody Harleson's character Haymitch.  Haymitch is the guy who train's Katniss and Peeta because he won the Hunger Games once, and it turned him into an angry alcoholic.  My love of this character is mirrored by the strange irony that he is the one character that doesn't belong in this movie, but rather the movie this was meant to be.

       My final thoughts, this movie had so much potential, yet fell flat on many levels.  Obviously I'm not s fan of this movie, then again I don't think I was the target audience either.  My brother is a fan of the series and pointed out the differences between the book and movie, and explained things to me, however I'm here to judge the movie, not the franchise.  My brother said a lot of the problems stemmed from the fact the book did an inner narration, and the movie was seen through Katniss' eyes and that because it was a movie, an inner voice wouldn't work, and to be honest would have fixed a lot.  In fact, movies can use inner voice and do it well (Shawshank anyone).  So blaming all the faults on the medium is just lazy.  I give this movie a C+, nothing special, but not awful.