The Hunger Games Review

(An aside - so I know my posts till now have been very cavalier and mostly me just talking, which is what I want a lot of my blog to be. However, it is also important to me to get out some content that actually showcases my writing, so without further ado, my first thought out and revised piece.)

The Poster:

155 million dollars later and the tagline has become prophetic

The Summary:

We join our young heroine Katniss Everdeen (phenomenally portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence) in her home district of District 12 as she awakens to comfort her young sister, Primrose (Willow Shields), when she wakes up screaming after having a nightmare in which she is picked for the dreaded hunger games. This loving relationship is what propels Katniss through the games after she winds up as one of the participants known as ‘tributes.’ The hunger games are a spectator event in which a group of twenty-four children, two from each district, must fight to the death. The leader of the districts, President Snow (Donald Sutherland), holds these games annually in order to ensure the cooperation of the residents of the twelve districts. The rest of the film focuses on Katniss’ journey through the games and watching her desperately try to cling to survival in order to return to take care of her sister.

The Spoiler-free Assessment:

If you have read the book then there are two things you must know. 1) The original screenplay is written by Suzanne Collins, the author of the novel, as well as the final rewrite. So the script is hers. 2) This is by far one of the best book-to-film adaptations I have ever seen. The switch between mediums is honored by changing the manner in which a lot of the information about the characters and the world from description based to visual based. I will go into more detail in the spoiler-filled assessment below. For those of you have not read the book, there is a reason the film made 155 million dollars opening weekend (the third largest opening ever and the largest non-sequel): the film is fantastic, even if you have not read the book. All of the performances capture the characters incredibly; Lawrence is wonderfully devoted as Katniss and the supporting cast is just as dedicated to their roles. Woody Harrelson is particularly good as Katniss’ alcoholic mentor Haymitch Abernathy. The film’s editing works incredibly well with the cinematography to both add to the intensity of the film and the terror felt by Katniss as well as to take away from the most grotesque scenes in order to allow the film to get its PG-13 reading and thus its wide audience. This does not mean the film doesn’t suffer from a few problems. The cinematography relies so heavily on shaky handheld camera work during the opening scenes that it began to be a little annoying, though the film balances this out later during the excitement of the actual games. The film suffers from some filmmaking clichés, such as the exciting roar of the crowd drowning out all other sounds and comes off as corny occasionally, though the film's director Gary Ross does tend to make up for those scenes by following the clichés with sequences that contribute to the characterizations of Katniss and the other tributes. Despite the occasional flaws, the film is fantastic and more than worth whatever your local theater charges for admission. Go see it.

My rating: Four out of five.

The Trailer:

For the Fans:

This guy is too good

Alright. Now for those of you have read the book or just don’t care about spoilers here are some of the changes they made and greater detail on the specific performances. I read the book. It’s a great book. Not the best writing but highly entertaining. So here are the major differences. The origin story of the mocking jay pin is changed. However I like the change. In the film, Katniss finds the pin at one of the vendors at the market; she gives it to Prim, who gives it back to her just before Katniss goes to the Capitol. I like the change because I thought it provided a great addition to her relationship with Prim, which mostly gets cut out of the film because of how little time the film spends in District 12. Don’t worry though, Lawrence and Shield’s performances as sisters are wonderful and showcase how close the two are. Next change now. Throughout Katniss’ time at the games the film cuts away to the control room where we see the gamemaster making decisions regarding the game, to a commentary delivered by Caesar (who is played to perfection by Stanley Tucci), and to the president discussing the purpose of the games (to give a little hope to the masses so that they don’t rise up against him). These cuts move away from the action but they give a lot more coverage to the purpose and manipulations of the games, which helps to show the way the government manipulates and controls its people. 

And Lawrence gives such a solid performance as Katniss that these cut aways do little to take away from her portrayal of Katniss’ emotional state and our connection as an audience with her. And now for the last change, which wasn’t a particularly big change, but really irked me. When the hounds are released in the book, Collins took great care to describe their eyes in order to imply that the hounds were made from the dead tributes. The film does not do that at all. The result of this is a much less monstrous depiction of the gamemakers and is actually pretty detrimental to the characterization of the government I thought. That being said, I stand by my earlier statement that this is one of the best book adaptations I’ve ever seen and if you even SLIGHTLY enjoyed the book you should go see the film.