Small order of business: if you’re about to comment to whine about how it’s just a “Battle Royale” rip-off, read this.
Now, we know what most of America thought: racking up $155 million in three days is impressive no matter when you do it, but especially in late March: that’s the third best opening of a movie of all time. And shockingly, it did pretty well with critics, too.
And what’d we think?
We thought it was a mixed bag, trending more towards the good than the bad.
Amazingly, Gary Ross, a screenwriter and director with all the subtlety of a brick through a window (see “Pleasantville” or, better, don’t), is not the problem here. If anything, the key problem is that it’s a little too faithful to the books: if you’ve read them, you know they’re heavily reliant on Katniss’ internal monologue and point of view, and that makes some moments tricky to put on screen. Similarly, the pacing sticks a bit too faithfully to the book: what works on page can plod a bit onscreen.
But, and this is what grabbed our attention the most, this is serious. There’s not a single campy moment in the entire film.
In short, it’s good. It’s really good. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth doing so: with that opening weekend, odds are pretty good you’ll have plenty of chances.
image courtesy Lionsgate
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It’s interesting that a film many were trying to paint as a “Twilight-style” teen supernatural rom-com was more brutal that most superhero/sci-fi movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but then I’m a fan of the books, so I’d be curious to see how folks who hadn’t read the books felt. My one major complaint was the overuse of the “handheld” camera style. It works for the action sequences, but did we really need it on the train, or during non-action sequences? (A: No. No we didn’t.)
Well, realistically, it had to be more brutal: they’ve got twenty-three kids to kill.
Or do they?
medium length review: it was terribly boring. the whole first half built up to these “games” and then the games themselves were even more boring then the set up. they didn’t show any of the action choosing instead to show us horrible acting from kids and musicians out of their depths in a big movie. its a waste of time.
short review: *fart noise* *wank motion*
You did know that this was a PG-13 movie right?
Hang on a minute. I come on the internet to anonymously bash things I have little to no knowledge of and you put a disclaimer right up front saying I can’t? Last time I checked this was the god damned Internet not IIIIRAN!!
IRAN, IRAN SO FAR AWAY…seriously, it’s like a few thousand miles or something. Anyway, welcome to my jackbooted regime.
I wanted to hate on this but a lot of people I have respect for kind of liked it so I guess I have to direct my internet hate else where. I do like Battle Royale though.
I really liked it, but I thought the pacing during the actual games made it hard for me to feel any sort of emotional connection to the characters. Since they have to effectively rush everything for the sake of not making the games themselves 2.5 hours, I didn’t feel any kind of connection to Rue, the one character the book wanted you to feel bad for getting offed, as well as demonstrate the inhumanity of it all.
My other gripe: were all the goddamn steady cams on loan when they were filming this movie?
I’m resigned to shaky-cam being the standard for another ten years until somebody decides to smooth their shots.
The movie was good. They did a fine job of cutting down the books into a film. I don’t agree with a couple important casting decisions – Lenny Kravitz or Donald Sutherland – but Woody Harrelson won me over. I thought he was a bad choice before I saw the movie.
The action was decent and despite knowing what happened, the acting and tension were built up enough to make me emotionally involved. The climax during the hunger games was pretty cheesy. The next two volumes get a lot more violent and political, so it will be interesting to see what route they take, considering there were a ton of kids in the theater.
I wish Snow was played by John Slattery, but you can’t win them all.
I was pleasently surprised really, sure they where BS moments like there is an entired district of black people and that healing gell that katniss aparently can’t save anything first but the second time she gets more she use some on peeta and some on her.
But yeah, its a good movie, entertaining and serious at the same time.
I did not read the books so some of the movie did not bother me. Like a certain death that I guess was a bigger deal in the books. I really think they needed about 20 – 30 minutes longer to really tell the story. They did not show many of the kills. Which was disappointing. And I know it was PG-13. But so was The Dark Knight. And Joker stabbed a dude in the throat with a pencil.
I also can not say it enough but I FUCKING HATE SHAKY CAM. It doesn’t help anything. Its just a lazy way of film making.
The movie was pretty and I will most likely get the Blu Ray.
Not throat. EYE.
Little know fact:
Stanley Kubrick invented shaky-cam when he looked at the footage that was shot while he strangled his DP and said “I guess that will do”.
I didn’t read the books either so I wasn’t bothered about any of the plot. I wasn’t blown away by the movie but I liked it a lot. It didn’t seem as long to me as it was, which means it kept my interest all the way through.
My wife read the book and her chief complaint was that they didn’t show the depth of the relationship between Lenny Kravits and Katness. In the book he was more of a father figure. I countered that the kiss he gave her alluded to something deeper. I guess Katniss’ relationship was more a convenience in the books, but I undestood that, too, by her reply to him on the train at the end.
Anyhoo, I have to agree about the handheld stuff. I don’t mind it when it is appropriate but man, do we need the camera bobbing up and down in rhythm to the DP’s breathing when two people are talking inside a house? It wasn’t even the major shakyness that bothered me but the subtle bobbing back and forth during serious, quiet scenes. I have to blame the director for this as the DP has worked on many good films that didn’t do that so much.
T-Bone’s soundtrack almost made up for it, though. The score was beautiful.
I meant ‘Katniss’ relationship with Peeta …’, in reference to the train at the end.
This is a strange one. I walked out feeling…I dunno… ambivalent really, and honestly kinda disappointed. But I had to really think on it to figure out why.
I read the books first and watching this movie I felt like I wouldve been very bored and a little lost with how much they left out, character development-wise, if I hadnt read them.
Having read them I felt like, even after the trailers, I walked in on a movie already in progress. The Hunger Games felt like someone had made two movies outta the first book (there’s def enough material) and changed their mind and edited them together into one overly short, brief glimpse at the imagery they invoked in my head when I read them the first time.
The flick was fine but there were some things that were not:
1 Woody needs to give Nic Cage his wig back.
2 Constant inappropriate use of Shaky-Cam. You wanna draw me into your world Mr Filmaker? Give me characters and story that do that… lazy ass hack.
3 The ending. Yah I get it, there’s gonna be sequels, but seriously? I got more closure and resolution at the end of Mass Effect 3…
I thought the movie was pretty crappy. The pacing was very slow and they had a worse/longer intro than the Ang Lee Hulk movie. if you are gonna waste so much time setting up the movie at least give sum back story. Why was there a revolt? What about the rest of the world? Why do they have future tech, but still live like its the early 1900′s? Why after 74 years have the people not risen up against the oppressive class? And depending on population, not sure how killing 2 people form each area once a year is a deterrent. Also anyone under 16 going up against 18 year olds has little to no chance to win, why even have such a broad age range? And are the contestant stupid? Do they not realize only one person can win/live? Why be sad when anyone dies? Also if you were in a “group” slit their throats in the middle of the night. The lack of logic, plot holes and slow pacing made it a pretty bad movie in my opinion.