The Hunger Games: The Year's Most Anticipated Carbon Copy

The whole world will be watching. That’s what the trailers and posters for The Hunger Games promises. It proved to be quite an effective marketing hook, because it seems to be right. The film was released this past Friday and took in over $152 million throughout the weekend. Being an adaptation of a bestselling young adult novel with a fanbase that rivals that of Twilight, the odds were ever in its favor. But does it live up to the hype?

The Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, a rather resourceful teenager from one of the dirty districts of a future U.S. In this future, the government keeps its citizens obedient by requiring each of its twelve districts to offer two teenagers who will fight to the death in a televised event known as The Hunger Games. Why call it the Hunger Games and not the Most Dangerous Game or Mortal Combat or Battle Royale? Because all of those names were already taken, for all we know. The movie doesn’t concern itself with such details.

Anyway, Katniss goes to a selection process known as The Reaping with her little sister. Her sister is randomly selected, but Katniss volunteers in her place. Peeta Mellark, a boy with a passing acquaintance to Katniss, is also selected to represent District 12. The two of them are whisked away to the Capitol to be spruced up and presented to the public in a rather outlandish opening ceremony.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss, continuing her streak of strong performances that includes 2010’s Winter’s Bone and supporting turns in last year’s The Beaver and X-Men: First Class, establishing herself as one of the best and most promising new talents. Lawrence successfully establishes a character that would be fine and worth watching on her own, despite being an ineffective fighter. Josh Hutcherson (Bridge to Terabithia, The Kids Are All Right) plays Peeta and seems to be getting better and better with each film. Hutcherson’s Peeta correctly exclaims he doesn’t have a chance – both as a character of much interest and a victor of the sport. Together, they’re perfectly acceptable. But I couldn’t help but feel their growing affection for each other was more of a plot device than anything else.

The cast also includes Elizabeth Banks, Wes Bentley, Woody Harrelson, Toby Jones, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. Harrelson and Kravitz are the stand-outs, the former as District 12’s mentor and the latter as their stylist.

The first hour is perhaps the film’s strongest. We’re introduced to a colorful society brainwashed into deeming a bloodsport between its youths as entertaining as a full season of American Idol, each contestant vying for public approval in order to win over sponsors (an element not delved into enough). After some training and further mugging for the cameras, it’s time for the games to begin. The gravity of the situation begins to sink in and Katniss shakes like a leaf during the final countdown to the start of the game.

That’s where the movie begins to fall apart.

The anticipation and edge-of-your-seat intensity that is built during the final moments before the start of the game is pulled right out from under us once the clock runs out. The scene becomes incomprehensible and we can’t tell what is happening to whom as the camera apparently goes into a seizure. Rather than experiencing the frantic and horrifying scene for ourselves, we’re allowed just the gist of it. We hardly get to see any of the teen-on-teen combat or how they deal with the situation.

Not only that, but before we know it, the environment becomes manipulated by a handful of people with an interactive digital map in a techno control room. Pretty soon, rules are added and then rescinded and creatures are thrown in just because.

Here’s the thing: if a movie wants us to invest in a scenario where teenagers are killing each other and must do what they can to survive that’s fine, that’s a potentially intense situation. But when that is suddenly interrupted by some puppeteers who can manipulate the situation and make any random thing happen – including alter the rules – then it’s really difficult to care what happens, because ultimately it doesn’t matter. I was beginning to wonder if the romance was also a product of some string-pulling. Turns out it was just the writers pulling those strings.

Gary Ross and his trio of screenwriters (including the author) have done a terrible job of establishing a consistent, believable situation. We can’t track how many contestants are left. The fight scenes are incomprehensible. There seems to be very little to this battle than the fight itself. We never see the characters react to the situation in any way other than to dutifully bump each other off or form alliances before presumably bumping each other off later. There’s very little terror, very little ingenuity. What’s keeping the teens from standing still and calling a truce? Are we to believe that nobody has ever acted defiantly or tried to outsmart the game itself?

The Hunger Games aspires to be very little and does a poor job even at that, making one wonder ‘Is this seriously what all the fuss is about?’. While the manner in which the violence is shot and the manipulative elements of the games are serious issues on their own, it’s difficult to ignore a number of other cracks that begin to appear along with these issues. How can one not be disappointed by The Hunger Games in every other way when the story has already been told with a richer and more effective execution? The comparisons to 2000’s Battle Royale are tough to avoid once The Hunger Games begins to falter. Both films are about a system that was set up in response to a rebellion. Both films require only one to survive. Both films provide the teens with a bag of survival gear, including a weapon of some kind. Both films primarily follow two teenagers in love. You can basically add derivative to the list of The Hunger Games' problems as it marries Battle Royale with a bit of The Running Man.

Check out Battle Royale instead, a film that gets a lot more mileage out of the core concept with far less frills.

5/10

Should you see it?

Skip.

The Hunger Games is now out in theaters.

(no trailer available)