First off, I need to clarify that this review covers the Hunger Games film that just came out. I have not read the novel, nor do I plan to. This review has nothing at all to do with the novel. Anything mentioned or criticized in this review only relates to the film. I will NOT be criticizing (or praising) the novel, and by the same token, I do not care if "the novel did it better." Now let's begin.
I'm going to start with the one part of the film that I really liked: the premise. The plot is full of cliches and holes (I'll deal with that later) but the main, overarching idea that drives the plot is pretty cool. Even just that main idea is cliche and tired - a dystopian future and a hero that has to fight against an oppressive upper class by overcoming the challenges presented in the event that most strongly represents the problems in their society - but that's completely forgivable. It's actually literally impossible to create a completely unique story, as all plots boil down to one of 6 or 7 unique stories (which can be read about here). With that in mind, I really liked the concept of a bunch of kids being thrown together to participate in a violent and inhumane display of the upper echelon's power over their subjects. Even if every other part of the film sucked, that would at least leave us some awesome action scenes...
...which leads me to my next point (and first real criticism): the action. It's terrible. Maybe it was to keep a PG-13 rating, or to make it friendly to younger readers. Either way, it's terrible. The only real action scene is filmed in a way that makes me think that perhaps the cameramen all dropped their camera, the microphones all got turned off and the editors fell asleep on their keyboards. Maybe they were trying to be artsy? I can't explain exactly what my problem was with the action without citing specific events (and therefore giving out spoilers) but hopefully my point got across anyway: the action was extremely poorly filmed, and probably badly choreographed too - though you wouldn't notice since it was so poorly filmed.
The plot. What to say about the plot? Well, for starters, most everything goes entirely unexplained throughout the entire film. This is especially hard to demonstrate without citing specific examples that would spoil the whole movie for you. Also hard to demonstrate without spoilers was how painfully cliche the story was. Suffice to say I was able to predict every pivotal moment in the film based solely on both shots that every B-movie uses to set up the next scene, or tired plot points that every writer seems to love to use. To the film's credit, however, it didn't use every cliche in the book, so luckily we didn't get a shot where our daring protagonist dropped to her knees, raised her arms and screamed with frustration in the pouring rain.
The last few problems I had with this movie can be summed up in one larger problem: the way it looked. Almost every shot that wasn't of the hero featured some moron in a ridiculous costume or a camera angle that was extremely distracting or for some reason had muted sound or blurred colors. The costumes were easily what pushed this movie from "run-of-the-mill action flick" to "genuinely bad movie." They were hilarious. Not just silly looking, but hilarious. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud in the theater every time I saw a new character or an old character changed their costume. I understand the point they were trying to make about how grotesque the people of the upper classes were, but they went so ridiculously overboard with it that I couldn't take any of it seriously. No matter how sad or serious a scene was, it turned into comedy relief as soon as I saw one of those stupid, stupid costumes.
My favorite part of this film is also the part that I hated most: the Capitol City itself. This is where the grotesque upper class morons live, but the city itself is extremely bland. The moment when the city gets its grand reveal was, while I was in the theater, my favorite part, and I actually really loved how they did it. This was the perfect time to show us for real how decadent and wasteful the upper classes are, but instead their city is just grey blocks and a few marble fountains. This wasted potential makes what would otherwise by my favorite scene in the film a perfect testament to where the filmmakers went wrong.
So there. My opinion about The Hunger Games, with as few spoilers as possible. Maybe in a few weeks, when the movie isn't new anymore, I'll write a longer version of this review with all the specific example included. If you found this review unsatisfactory or unfair, please let me know so that I can get better at this blogging thing.
If you actually did, thanks for reading!
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