The Hunger Games (2012) directed by Gary Ross
I missed out on the whole Harry Potter and Twilight craze so I wasn't about to miss out on the biggest book in recent years with The Hunger Games. I finished the trilogy pretty quickly and have been eagerly waiting for this day for months. I haven't done the whole waiting outside of the theatre thing since like the new Star Wars movies, but today my friends and I waited outside for a couple hours like a bunch of nerds. With all the movies that I've been watching on my own the past year it reminded me how fun it was to go out to these big opening days.
In case you've been living under a rock I'll give you a brief description of the movie. In a dystopian future there is a central capitol city and twelve surrounding districts that are ruled under the Capitol's iron fist. Every year each district must supply two tributes, a boy and a girl, to participate in the Hunger Games where they will fight to the death for the Capitol's amusement, Roman gladiator style. 24 people enter the arena but only one will make it out. The hero of the story is Katniss Everdeen, one of the strongest female protagonists in recent memory. (She would kick the crap out of that whiny Bella Swan.) She is accompanied by fellow tribute Peeta Mellark who serves as a love interest despite the fact that there can only be one winner which means one, or mostly likely both, will not survive.
Half the fun in watching a movie of a book you've read is in seeing how it matches up with what you imagined when reading the book. I was curious to see how they portrayed characters and how certain scenes would translate onto film. First I'd like to say that Jennifer Lawrence is a perfect fit for Katniss. She is a strong and compelling young actress playing a character with similar traits to Ree, her highly praised role in Winter's Bone. She's pretty much exactly what I imagined Katniss to look and feel like and she plays the part well. I can't really say the same for the other characters as nobody looks like what I pictured. That isn't to say that anyone was miscast or anything, just that they're just different from what I imagined. For instance, I imagined Haymitch, played by Woody Harrelson, to be kind of a fat slob. Even when Harrelson is trying to be a slob he still looks cool doing it and he is definitely not fat here. I know they are trying to put more emphasis on the love triangle angle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta but it seems like they are trying to do what Twilight did by having the other guy (Gale) be a super hunk. Meanwhile Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, kind of looks like a doofus. Who still slicks their hair back like that anyways? What is this, the 60's?
A lot of people assume the biggest challenge in adapting a book into a movie, particularly a futuristic sci-fi world no one has really seen before, is in the visual imagery, but in my opinion a bigger challenge is in translating heavy internal dialogue onto the screen. The books are written in the first person with Katniss as the narrator so we know exactly what she is thinking and feeling. In the film we can't read her thoughts and it would be lame to have a voice over going throughout the whole thing, so we have to interpret a lot of her thoughts and feelings through her actions and short dialogue. I feel like a lot of Katniss's thought processes and motivations aren't clearly defined in the film. It is easy for me to say what she is supposed to be feeling in a scene because I've read the book, but I feel like a lot of stuff would be missed or looked over by someone who hasn't. For instance, I wasn't entirely convinced of her sudden romantic interest in Peeta. In the book it is a continual struggle for her to accept him, but here it just comes too suddenly without that much build up. Her alliance with Rue and her feelings towards her also felt kind of rushed which kind of muffles the emotional impact of their scene together.
SPOILER:
The significance of the berries at the the end of the book is detailed almost ad nauseam. In the film I felt like it was completely ignored. I understand the need for brevity and the tough task it is to trim down a book into a screenplay, but this was a huge part of the story and a key link to the second book. When it is down to Katniss and Peeta as the final two, I would have loved to see a longer scene with more emotional struggle, but the scene ends so fast and without much of the punch.
END SPOILER
Overall I feel like the movie is a faithful adaptation to the book, but it seemed to be missing its emotional core which would have made the film so much better. Regardless it is still a fun and exciting movie to watch. While I felt the character development was kind of lacking, I did think the film did a pretty good job in the action/fighting/surviving department, which is what I suppose the casual fan wants to see in a movie anyways. I probably had more fun than most because of my attachment to the book, and I wasn't really even that attached, so I can imagine how the true fans must have really dug it up. Now I have to wait another year for Catching Fire.
Grade: B
I missed out on the whole Harry Potter and Twilight craze so I wasn't about to miss out on the biggest book in recent years with The Hunger Games. I finished the trilogy pretty quickly and have been eagerly waiting for this day for months. I haven't done the whole waiting outside of the theatre thing since like the new Star Wars movies, but today my friends and I waited outside for a couple hours like a bunch of nerds. With all the movies that I've been watching on my own the past year it reminded me how fun it was to go out to these big opening days.
In case you've been living under a rock I'll give you a brief description of the movie. In a dystopian future there is a central capitol city and twelve surrounding districts that are ruled under the Capitol's iron fist. Every year each district must supply two tributes, a boy and a girl, to participate in the Hunger Games where they will fight to the death for the Capitol's amusement, Roman gladiator style. 24 people enter the arena but only one will make it out. The hero of the story is Katniss Everdeen, one of the strongest female protagonists in recent memory. (She would kick the crap out of that whiny Bella Swan.) She is accompanied by fellow tribute Peeta Mellark who serves as a love interest despite the fact that there can only be one winner which means one, or mostly likely both, will not survive.
Half the fun in watching a movie of a book you've read is in seeing how it matches up with what you imagined when reading the book. I was curious to see how they portrayed characters and how certain scenes would translate onto film. First I'd like to say that Jennifer Lawrence is a perfect fit for Katniss. She is a strong and compelling young actress playing a character with similar traits to Ree, her highly praised role in Winter's Bone. She's pretty much exactly what I imagined Katniss to look and feel like and she plays the part well. I can't really say the same for the other characters as nobody looks like what I pictured. That isn't to say that anyone was miscast or anything, just that they're just different from what I imagined. For instance, I imagined Haymitch, played by Woody Harrelson, to be kind of a fat slob. Even when Harrelson is trying to be a slob he still looks cool doing it and he is definitely not fat here. I know they are trying to put more emphasis on the love triangle angle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta but it seems like they are trying to do what Twilight did by having the other guy (Gale) be a super hunk. Meanwhile Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, kind of looks like a doofus. Who still slicks their hair back like that anyways? What is this, the 60's?
A lot of people assume the biggest challenge in adapting a book into a movie, particularly a futuristic sci-fi world no one has really seen before, is in the visual imagery, but in my opinion a bigger challenge is in translating heavy internal dialogue onto the screen. The books are written in the first person with Katniss as the narrator so we know exactly what she is thinking and feeling. In the film we can't read her thoughts and it would be lame to have a voice over going throughout the whole thing, so we have to interpret a lot of her thoughts and feelings through her actions and short dialogue. I feel like a lot of Katniss's thought processes and motivations aren't clearly defined in the film. It is easy for me to say what she is supposed to be feeling in a scene because I've read the book, but I feel like a lot of stuff would be missed or looked over by someone who hasn't. For instance, I wasn't entirely convinced of her sudden romantic interest in Peeta. In the book it is a continual struggle for her to accept him, but here it just comes too suddenly without that much build up. Her alliance with Rue and her feelings towards her also felt kind of rushed which kind of muffles the emotional impact of their scene together.
SPOILER:
The significance of the berries at the the end of the book is detailed almost ad nauseam. In the film I felt like it was completely ignored. I understand the need for brevity and the tough task it is to trim down a book into a screenplay, but this was a huge part of the story and a key link to the second book. When it is down to Katniss and Peeta as the final two, I would have loved to see a longer scene with more emotional struggle, but the scene ends so fast and without much of the punch.
END SPOILER
Overall I feel like the movie is a faithful adaptation to the book, but it seemed to be missing its emotional core which would have made the film so much better. Regardless it is still a fun and exciting movie to watch. While I felt the character development was kind of lacking, I did think the film did a pretty good job in the action/fighting/surviving department, which is what I suppose the casual fan wants to see in a movie anyways. I probably had more fun than most because of my attachment to the book, and I wasn't really even that attached, so I can imagine how the true fans must have really dug it up. Now I have to wait another year for Catching Fire.
Grade: B
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