I haven’t read the ‘Hunger Games’ series of novels written by Suzanne Collins. Judging from the movie, the director expects you’ve seen it and doesn’t offer much sympathy to those that haven’t. The books are set in the future where an uprising agains the government has caused the Capitol to take drastic measures to maintain control over the people.
Each year, The Hunger Games take place. One child from each district is selected to take part in a fight to the death hunting game, which is televised for everyone’s entertainment. This sets up a pretty grim story and it is for the most part. “Hunger Games” is the first of a trilogy of movies, although it’s almost certain they will end up splitting the final book/movie up into two parts in order to milk as much money as they can from this brief franchise.
The first story focuses on Katniss Everdeen, who in the movie is played by Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class). After her younger sister is the selection from District 12, Katniss intervenes and offers herself as a tribute. She’s a far better hunter than her more timid sister. The rest of the movie centers around her training at the Capitol and release onto the grid, which can be manipulated to make things more interesting. There is little to no explanation for a lot of it, again, the movie assumes you’ve read the books.
The problem with the movie is that it lacks emotional depth. Whenever a character is killed– and there is plenty of death– it just fails to resonate any meaning. I’ve heard that “I’d understand if I had read the books” but a movie fails if it can’t get an audience involved without reading the source material. I personally found it hard to become invested in anything that was going on.
Jennifer Lawrence is good in the movie but she doesn’t show much range of emotion either. Also good are Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz and Woody Harrelson but their characters are given far too little screen time to make up for weak performances by Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.
Overall, “Hunger Games” is solid but the lack of proper direction by Gary Ross is what keeps it from being a classic action adventure movie. With two more flicks to come, here is hoping the next guy can get more out of his acting talent and tell a story that we can all enjoy, not just the ones who have read the books.
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