Hunger Games reviews

[Precious Doll]

I think she has been best of all in Like Crazy, and though her role is very small she brings much humanity and understatement to the role. She was also impressive in Winter Bone. The Hunger Games will be video viewing experience for me a few months down the track. However, an even more impressive young actress to emerge in the last year or so is Brit Marling. She stars in Mike Cahill's Another Earth (much acclaimed in Sundance 2011), which struck me as film that succeeds in everything where von Trier's Meloncholia failed. The storys are similar in that each film is about a young woman going through and emotional revaluation of herself at a time when another planet is approaching earth. Brit Marling is very much the emotional heart of her film and her scenes with Willam Mapother are filled with tension, guilt, fear and happiness. It also concludes in a satisfactory manner, and with a few questions. Worth seeking out.

[OscarGuy]

I haven't seen her compared thusly, but I was struck watching The Hunger Games, Winter's Bone (the first performance of hers I saw) and X-Men: First Class that we're looking at the kind of acting debut the likes of Elizabeth Taylor once enjoyed. I'd almost go so far as to suggest Lawrence could have a Taylor-like career blended in equal measure of dramatic and populist turns always bringing humanity and charm to her performances even in less than stellar films.

[Big Magilla]

Jennifer Lawrence is the real deal. I haven't seen her in X-Men or Hunger Games, but she is noteworthy in a small role in The Beaver and the standout in the over-hyped Like Crazy. She seems destined for a long and rewarding career.

[Sonic Youth]

May the God of Cineastes strike me dead with Bunuel's lightning bolt, but (except for the last 20 minutes and a few supporting performances) I found this far more engaging than Fincher's "Dragon Tattoo" remake... as long as I remembered that this is an adaptation of "Young Adult" literature, made for a primarily "young adult (meaning 'adolescent')" audience. In other words, the satire, dystopia and cynicism are nothing new to me or anyone else here, but for a 14 year old it's pretty sophisticated stuff. And since most mainstream films are made for 14 year olds of all ages, this rises pretty comfortably beyond the median. Also, since most blockbusters are rigid and tight-assed and deafeningly loud, it was a relief to finally see one that's unfashionably loose and quiet (a big thank you to soundtrack producer T Bone Burnett, as well as to the wonderfully textured, nomination-worthy audio). Obvious, unsubtle ideas and visual cues portrayed with modest off-handedness? I'll settle. Even the film's credits are presented in an unassuming white-upon-black, Woody Allen style.

That said, I'm not all that keen to watch any of the sequels. This was entertaining stuff, but not so compelling that I need to know what happens next. This is partly because Hunger Games worked fine as its own entity, and the prospect of anything beyond it feels superfluous. (Needless to say, the book is yet another worldwide literary phenomenom I'll happily live my life never reading.) But it's also because, except for Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss, I'm not all that invested in the other characters or in any of the plot developments outside the game itself. This is no timeless classic, but merely a fun night out at the movies. I'm not clamoring for several reiterations of more-of-the-same. As for Lawrence? People are going to argue that she does nothing more than any other skilled actress could have done, but that's more to do with the nature of the character. I don't think there's anything that any actress could've done with Katniss other than inhabit her entirely the way Lawrence does. Anything more than that would have been disharmonious with the character, as well as with the film itself.

[Okri]

Your reference to Twilight is interesting, Tee. I literally had no knowledge of Twilight until the weekend the movie came out. It was then I was hearing about screaming fans for Robert Pattison, and the massive success of the book. I had seen the books at my local Chapters bookstore, but I had always assumed that from the unadorned covers and uninteresting titles they were from small local publishing houses that the store was showcasing. Finding out they were part of a massive phenomenon was a little disconcerting.

As for The Hunger Games - yeah, I'm not that interested in it but the trailer piqued my curousity and I might visit it in the cheap theatres.

[Mister Tee]

The constant seems to be significant praise for Jennifer Lawrence, which is a relief -- I honestly wondered, after the X-Men thing (where I found her utterly bland), whether Winter's Bone had been a fluky connection for her. (It's also possible critics who admired her in Winter's Bone will go easier on this film because of her presence)

[Mister Tee]

Screen Daily.

The Hunger Games

16 March, 2012 | By Tim Grierson

Dir: Gary Ross. US. 2012. 142mins


Dystopian sci-fi, tense action-thriller, soapy teen romance, grim social commentary: The big-screen adaptation of The Hunger Games certainly doesn’t lack for ambition, and although it’s mostly successful, one can’t help wishing the film could have better integrated its different tones and agendas. Based on the popular first novel in Suzanne Collins’ trilogy about a dark future society where young people must kill each other for sport, this much-anticipated film is anchored by Jennifer Lawrence’s strong central performance, which helps compensate for a somewhat derivative storyline and worldview.


Making Katniss tough but sympathetic, Lawrence creates an emotional rooting interest from the start.

The film’s tagline – “The World Will Be Watching” – refers to the televised titular contest, but it also serves as an apt prediction for the movie’s box office prospects. Lionsgate hopes they’ve found their own Twilight/Harry Potter/Lord Of The Rings fantasy franchise, and certainly awareness for The Hunger Games is high. The only downside for Lionsgate may be the studio having to temper industry expectations if their film falls short of the unbelievably high commercial bar set by three of the most popular screen series of the last decade. So the question will be not whether Hunger Games makes a killing but, rather, just how spectacular the grosses will be.

Kicking off with only a brief bit of written exposition, the film plunges us into the story’s futuristic setting. Each year, the nation of Panem selects one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of its 12 districts to compete in The Hunger Games, a televised battle to the death where the final survivor is declared champion. Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) volunteers from her district to spare her younger sister, and soon she finds herself travelling to the deadly event with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), her district’s male participant.

Running just a few minutes shy of two-and-a-half hours, The Hunger Games is almost exactly divided between a first section in which the characters and their world are introduced and the second half in which Katniss and her fellow combatants face off. Directed by Gary Ross (making quite a departure from his previous two efforts, Pleasantville and Seabiscuit), the film works best in its matter-of-fact depiction of a nightmare society in which materialism and bloodlust have escalated – not to mention people’s thirst for reality-based entertainment. Working from Collins’ 2008 novel – she’s credited as one of the film’s screenwriters and executive producers – The Hunger Games paints a portrait of a world that has so embraced sensation and spectacle that its humanity has almost been wiped clean.

In the movie’s early stretches, Lawrence shows real grit as a young woman from Panem’s poorest district who must be the steady rock for her ineffectual mother and adoring younger sister. While Katniss would seem to be a very different role than her Ozark heroine from the Sundance hit Winter’s Bone, Lawrence’s steely determination binds them together in a way that makes it apparent why the filmmakers would choose her for the part. Making Katniss tough but sympathetic, Lawrence creates an emotional rooting interest from the start.

This is crucial considering that The Hunger Games can be uneven dramatically. While the movie’s bleak vision – ably brought to life by long-time Clint Eastwood cinematographer Tom Stern – is arresting, the attempts to satirize society’s reality-TV obsession can be awfully heavy-handed and repetitive at times. (Also unfortunate is the fact that The Hunger Games is the umpteenth dystopian film in which civilization’s moral decay is visualized by having the characters wear the tackiest, silliest costumes imaginable.)

Of course, the story’s centrepiece is The Hunger Games, which focuses the action around Katniss and Peeta while a lot of the supporting characters we’ve met (including those played by Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks) drift into the background. Taking place in the midst of lush woods, the contest conjures up memories of other dangerous forests from fairy tales like Red Riding Hood or Snow White. Instead of being action-packed, though, the film’s second half spaces out its battles, creating palpable dread as we (and Katniss) wait for the next attack. When they do come, they have a visceral, unsettling quality to them, which might make the movie too intense for younger viewers.

Sadly, there’s a sense of familiarity that The Hunger Games can’t completely shake off. Recalling everything from Lord Of The Flies to A.I. to The Running Man to the cult Japanese thriller Battle Royale, the movie feels more like a solidly crafted amalgam of disparate influences than a wholly original vision. (Adding to this feeling is effects work that can occasionally look less than cutting-edge.) Still, what holds The Hunger Games together is the filmmakers’ laser-like focus on Katniss, creating a most unlikely coming-of-age story in which a shy tomboy finds love and self-confidence in the deadliest of situations.

Of the rest of the cast, Hutcherson is likeable as Peeta, although it’s a pity he and Lawrence aren’t given enough screen time before their attraction needs to start building near the end. The bigger names who make up the supporting players – including Banks as Katniss’s chaperone and Stanley Tucci as a megalomaniacal talk show host – don’t have a lot to do, which too often results in performances that lean uncomfortably close to caricature. Interestingly, one of the highlights is musician Lenny Kravitz, who plays Katniss’ sweet and supportive stylist with an understated ease that didn’t rub off on some of his castmates.

[OscarGuy]

I read the Reporter review and there's one major spoiler in it for sure regarding one of the tributes, but for the most part, it does well to avoid it. Of course, it's written like a fan of the book talking to a fan of the book, which could explain why the spoiler feels natural to it.

Anyway, I think it's important to note that the film is directed by someone who's no stranger to the Oscars (Gary Ross), seems to be heading towards universally better reviews than the Twilight franchise and may well become one of the big grossers of all-time (mostly because it appeals not only to the Twihards, but also several other people who were averse to Twilight, me for example).

[Mister Tee]

Hollywood Reporter; apparently spoiler-ific.

The Hunger Games: Film Review

11:00 PM PDT 3/15/2012 by Todd McCarthy

The Bottom Line

Jennifer Lawrence is stellar in this faithful, good-enough film version of the massive best-seller.

Directed by Gary Ross and based on the first in a trilogy of best-selling novels, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth as teens living in a dystopian future in which young people are forced to fight to the death on live television.

The arrow hits an outer circle of the target in The Hunger Games, an amply faithful adaptation of Suzanne Collins' monster young-adult best-seller that could have used a higher blood count in more ways than one. As she did in her breakthrough film Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence anchors this futuristic and politicized elaboration of The Most Dangerous Game with impressive gravity and presence, while director Gary Ross gets enough of what matters in the book up on the screen to satisfy its legions of fans worldwide. This Lionsgate release is being positioned as the hottest property for the teen audience since Twilight, and there's no reason to believe that box office results won't land roughly in that vaunted vicinity.

Published in 2008, The Hunger Games marked the beginning of a trilogy, rounded out by Catching Fire and Mockingjay, which has in toto sold more than 26 million copies, with many more to come now that the film has arrived. A giant opening weekend beginning March 23, which is all but guaranteed, will no doubt trigger a green light for the second big-screen installment in the series, for which the three lead actors are already set.

A speculative fiction piece about a 16-year-old expert hunter who becomes one of 24 teenagers to compete in an annual televised combat spectacle from which only one will emerge alive, Collins' tale rips along on the page with unflagging momentum while generating legitimate suspense and a strong rooting interest in its resourceful heroine. So visually vivid are the book's episodes that you can practically picture a film version while reading it, meaning that it would have been foolish for any filmmaking team to veer far from the source.

With Collins on board as both a co-screenwriter and executive producer, there was little chance of that, so it's more a matter of emphasis and cinematic elan. Ross, Collins and third writer Billy Ray have stressed the fascistic political side of the story, pointing up the micromanaged manipulations of the public and the games themselves while also suggesting that contemporary reality shows and televised competitions differ from this extravaganza only in their lower mortality rate.

As for visual spectacle, there's enough but, along with it, a feeling of being slightly shortchanged; the long shots of gigantic cityscapes, of a fast train gliding silkily through the country, of massive crowds gathered to see this year's gladiators before they set off to kill one another, of the decorative flames emanating from the leads' costumes as the pair is presented to the public for the first time -- all are cut a bit short, as if further exposure would reveal them as one notch below first-rate. On the other hand, the costumes and makeup are a riot of imagination designed to evoke a level of topped-out decadence comparable to that of Nero's Rome or Louis XVI's Paris.

Most noticeable of all, however, is the film's lack of hunting instinct. The novel conveyed a heady sense of blood-scent, of Katniss Everdeen's lifetime of illegal hunting paying off in survival skills that, from the outset, make her the betting favorite to win the 74th edition of the Hunger Games. While present, this critical element is skimmed over onscreen, reducing a sense of the heroine's mental calculations as well as the intensity of her physical challenges and confrontations. One senses that the filmmakers wanted to avoid showing much hunting onscreen, for fear of offending certain sensibilities; stylistically, one longs for the visceral expressiveness of, say, Walter Hill in his prime. It's also clear that the need for a PG-13 rating dictated moderation; a film accurately depicting the events of the book would certainly carry an R.

That said, Hunger Games has such a strong narrative structure, built-in forward movement and compelling central character that it can't go far wrong. From the outset, it's easy to accept a future North America, once decimated by war and now called Panem, divided into 12 districts kept under tight control by an all-powerful central government in the stunningly modernistic Capitol.

Katniss, embodied by Lawrence just as one might imagine her from the novel, lives in far-flung District 12, a poor mining region that can only have been Appalachia in earlier times (indeed, the film was shot in North Carolina). Like all other teenagers, she's annually entered in the Reaping, in which a boy and girl from each district are chosen by lottery to compete in a murderous contest designed both for its political symbolism and public intoxication value. When her beloved little sister's name is shockingly called, Katniss, a dead shot with bow and arrow, volunteers to take her place as a district Tribute, alongside Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a shy, seemingly sweet kid with goo-goo eyes for Katniss. Her male model-like soulmate Gale (Liam Hemsworth) gets left behind.

The remainder of the first hour details the contestants' preparation for the games. This involves cleaning, buffing and accoutering (rather like what happens to the visitors upon arrival in The Wizard of Oz), fight training alongside fellow combatants, abundant eating, tactical advice from oft-inebriated long-ago District 12 winner Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and a public interview conducted by flamboyant TV host Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci ), a one-man panic so skilled at playing his guests that he gets Peeta to confess his adoration for the unsuspecting Katniss. Decked out with a balloon of backswept blue hair finished off by a giant bun, Tucci has a ball with this fun character, who serves to frame the brutality to come as entertainment by accentuating its personal melodramas.

Once thrown into “the arena,” a topographically varied stretch of wilderness, the Tributes do whatever it takes to survive. Quite a few are butchered at the outset in the mad dash for weapons and supplies. For her part, Katniss hightails it for the interior, where she sleeps out of sight in trees before the “gamemaker,” Seneca (Wes Bentley), has her flushed out by wildfire. The film goes further than the book in illustrating how omnipotent studio controllers can manipulate the action as they wish, in ways they feel will create better television and, in the bargain, please their all-powerful president (Donald Sutherland), who will countenance no sign of resistance or rebellion.

And, yet, that is what happens when the games' youngest and sweetest contestant, Rue (Amandla Stenberg), after bonding with Katniss, is abruptly killed. Everything that happens out in the field is captured by countless hidden cameras (Ross and cinematographer Tom Stern shift between lush, steady camerawork for “objective” coverage and a jittery, hand-held style for on-the-spot verite footage), and Rue's death ignites unrest in her working-class district. But this represents a mere prelude to what Katniss pulls off in the ingenious climax, which troubles the already suspicious president and neatly sets the stage for the political turmoil of the sequels.

A crucial area in which the film falls far short of the book is the charade aspect, as Katniss experiences it, of her “romance” with Peeta. Without her interior narration and deliberate play-acting once she allies herself with her fellow District 12 cohort, the gradations of her ambivalence and acceptance are smoothed over to the point of blandness. The survival story retains its vitality, but what lies underneath is stunted.

At the center of things most of the time, Lawrence remains compelling all the way. As in Winter's Bone, she's onscreen alone, or nearly so, a great deal, and she holds one's attention unselfconsciously, without asking for attention or even doing much other than the task at hand. Lawrence is one of those performers the camera loves; her appearance alters in different scenes and shots -- lingering baby fat shows here, she resembles a Cleopatra there -- and she can convey a lot by doing little. An ideal screen actress.

The young men on hand can't measure up to her standards and, while Harrelson has his moments, the combustible Haymitch has been rather cleaned up from the book. Making a decided impression here is Lenny Kravitz, who will probably field more acting offers after his turn as Katniss' charismatic stylist Cinna (quite a few characters are named after Romans).

Production values are ample if not lavish. The soundtrack, a joint venture between composer James Newton Howard and executive music producer T Bone Burnett, features an intriguing blend of regional and atmospheric flavors (the end-title tune from Taylor Swift engages on a first listen), though more musical propulsion would have helped juice things up in the late going.

[Mister Tee]

Do we care about this movie (apart from the fact it's apparently headed for a huge gross)? I know I'm showing my utter alienation from under-30 culture, but I'd never even heard of this until recently (unlike, say, Twilight). Anyway, here's Variety, with Hollywood Reporter to follow.


The Hunger Games

The first novel in Suzanne Collins' bestselling trilogy is a futuristic fight-to-the-death thriller driven by pure survival instinct, but the creative equivalent of that go-for-broke impulse is absent from director Gary Ross' "The Hunger Games."

By Justin Chang

The first novel in Suzanne Collins' bestselling trilogy is a futuristic fight-to-the-death thriller driven by pure survival instinct, but the creative equivalent of that go-for-broke impulse is absent from director Gary Ross' "The Hunger Games." Proficient, involving, ever faithful to its source and centered around Jennifer Lawrence's impressive star turn, this much-anticipated, nearly 2 1/2-hour event picture should satiate fans, entertain the uninitiated and take an early lead among the year's top-grossing films. Yet in the face of near-certain commercial success, no one seems to have taken the artistic gambles that might have made this respectable adaptation a remarkable one.

Relentlessly paced, unflagging in its sense of peril and blessed with a spunky protagonist who can hold her own alongside Bella Swan and Lisbeth Salander in the pantheon of pop-lit heroines, Collins' latest book cycle seemed a logical candidate for adaptation from the get-go. Narrated in a first-person style that favors swift exposition over descriptive detail, the series also offers a filmmaker plenty of leeway not only in visualizing its dystopian world onscreen, but in tackling the real-world parallels implicit in this grim vision of totalitarian rule.

Bookended by scenes set in a high-tech city, the film quickly immerses the viewer in the mud and grime of District 12, the poorest of the dozen civilian sectors that make up the futuristic nation of Panem. The government maintains order through nationally televised bloodsports known as the Hunger Games, in which two "tributes" from each district, a boy and a girl, must participate in an annual winner-kills-all-and-takes-all bloodbath.

Pluckier and more resourceful than most is 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a skilled archer who hunts to provide for herself, her mother (Paula Malcomson) and her younger sister, Prim (Willow Shields). When Prim is selected at random to represent District 12 in the games, Katniss bravely volunteers to take her place and winds up paired with baker's son Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares a brief, vague history.

Accompanied by some leaden comic relief in the form of a drunken mentor (Woody Harrelson) and a garishly made-up escort (Elizabeth Banks), the two are whisked off to the Capital, an ivory tower of a city imagined as a fantastical explosion of color by production designer Philip Messina and costume designer Judianna Makovsky, among others. There, all 24 tributes are made over, trained for battle and interviewed by a beaming, blue-haired celebrity host (Stanley Tucci) as a prelude to this lethal mash-up of "Survivor," "American Idol" and, at one point, "Project Runway."

The questions raised here, regarding the morality of violence as entertainment and the brutality of pitting children against each other, have been addressed before, and to more potent effect, in films like "Series 7: The Contenders" and the shockingly violent Japanese actioner "Battle Royale." Yet if the satirical and topical elements aren't exactly fresh, the script (by Ross, Collins and Billy Ray) does give them a few knowing spins. Particularly shrewd are the behind-the-scenes moments when Panem's President Snow (a quietly malevolent Donald Sutherland) pressures Seneca (Wes Bentley), the keeper of the games, to maintain control of the situation, a subplot that reps one of the few deviations from the novel and lays the groundwork for "Catching Fire," the next film in the Lionsgate series.

But once the games begin and the contenders are released into a densely forested arena, rigged with "Truman Show"-style cameras for maximum coverage and trackability, the film clings to Collins' text as if it were itself a survival guide. Readers may find themselves mentally checking off plot points as Katniss looks for water; flees fires; makes strategic use of a wasps' nest; tries to suss out whether Peeta loves her, wants to kill her or both; and uses her many years of hunting experience to evade, outwit and inevitably destroy her attackers.

Whatever its earlier shortcomings, the picture really should have spread its wings at this stage, morphing into a spare, stripped-down actioner fueled by sheer adrenaline and nonstop harrowing incident. That intention is evident enough in the darting handheld camerawork and quick cutting style favored here by the filmmakers, including d.p. Tom Stern and editors Stephen Mirrione and Juliette Welfling. Yet while the individual setpieces are well staged, they also feel a bit too neatly scheduled within the story's framework, and the frequent toggling between the arena and Seneca's control room only undercuts the momentum.

Lawrence, who auditioned brilliantly for this role with her even rawer turn in "Winter's Bone," again projects a heartrending combo of vulnerability, grit and soul while convincingly playing several years her junior. The camera remains so glued to her every expression and gesture that no one else, save perhaps Lenny Kravitz as Katniss' suave professional stylist, is given the opportunity to hold the screen against her.

The film does achieve a strong surge of emotion when Katniss forms an alliance with young tribute Rue (winning newcomer Amandla Stenberg), culminating in a stirring sequence that pauses to acknowledge the sheer, impossible inhumanity of the situation. Yet after this high point, things settle into a more prosaic, anticlimactic rhythm, and the central drama, pivoting on the nature of Katniss' and Peeta's relationship, never sparks to life.

What viewers are left with is a watchable enough picture that feels content to realize someone else's vision rather than claim it as its own. Any real sense of risk has been carefully ironed out: The PG-13 rating that ensures the film's suitability for its target audience also blunts the impact of the teen-on-teen bloodshed, most of it rendered in quick, oblique glimpses; whether this is the morally responsible decision is open to debate. Weirdest of all: Hunger, the one constant in Katniss' hard-scrabble life, barely even seems to register.

Ross, a reliable craftsman directing his first film since 2003's "Seabiscuit," makes a point of delineating between the haves and have-nots: While the Capital is an overlit, f/x-heavy wonderland, the bleak, desaturated images of rural-industrial poverty in District 12 could have been influenced by the photographs of Dorothea Lange. Given such wildly disparate parts (one scene suggests "Little House on the Prairie" invaded by Stormtroopers), the look doesn't entirely cohere, though auds will gladly suspend disbelief. Complementing James Newton Howard's orchestral score, the unusually lyrical, C&W-steeped soundtrack, boasting contributions from Arcade Fire, Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift, nicely suggests an America mired in an uncertain future.