The Hunger Games (2012)

I had no idea what to expect from this one.  When I first heard of The Hunger Games it was in context of the Twilight books.  As in, "The Hunger Games is the newest series aimed at young fans of Twilight."  Given the fact that Twilight is a horrible monstrosity, such an association did not fill me with great hope and confidence.

So let me get this out in the open: The Hunger Games is to Twilight what apple pie is to cow pie.

But even so, I've eaten better pie than Hunger Games.  After all, in this business, simply being not as terrible as Twilight is not really a huge deal.  Twilight was bad.  It was miserable dreck.  It really isn't all that hard to be better than such pathetic stuff.  Hunger Games, on the other hand, does quite a lot very well.  It really is a good movie in many ways.  Unfortunately, it seems to rely quite heavily on having a built-in fan base and rarely rises above the level of adequacy.

The acting is adequate.  Jennifer Lawrence, of X-Men: First Class fame, has the lead role, and puts in the best performance of the cast.  It shocks me to say this, since there are a few top names in the cast such as Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland.  Woody Harrelson has a great entrance and a large part, but never manages to make much with what he is given.  Donald Sutherland is grossly underused; he had simply nothing to work with, showing up now and then only to scowl and such.  I can't help but think that his role is actually unnecessary for this film.  Perhaps the character of President Snow would have been better as an unseen menace, a power behind the curtain like the Emperor was in the first Star Wars.  All that to say this: the acting is passable, but could have been much better.

The writing is adequate.  Certainly this is a film that leans upon the source material and does not want to displease the target audience.  Perhaps this is why I, as a viewer who has never read the book, kept thinking that what I was watching would be better if I knew the book.  It came off stiff and unnatural at parts, as though faithfulness to the novel were more important than being its own thing as a movie.

The special effects and design are adequate.  I appreciate the fact that they do not try to do much that is over-fancy.  On the other hand, nothing really stood out either.  This was a glossy, high-shine kind of film, where everything that is done feels like there was a high price tag to make it.  But for all that there was not much that was truly memorable.  No iconic location, set piece, or distinct feel.  Not to mention that each of the "districts" felt rather small.  I honestly thought, after viewing the film, that each district (at least district 12) was about the size of a county, perhaps a very small state at best.  Only later (online) do I find out that each district represents a region that would incorporate several states.  That each district seemed only to have the population of a few thousand seems a design flaw to me.

Overall, I enjoyed watching The Hunger Games.  It was a good action film, drawing on tried and true themes that had been done many other times by previous films.  The problem, of course, is that previous films had done all those themes better.  At best, The Hunger Games is average.  That's not bad, of course, but neither is it worthy of all the attention it is getting.  I'm just guessing here, but the book is probably better.

Entertainment: 5/10
Artistic Value: 4/10
Technical Merit: 5/10

Overall: 5/10