Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Hunger Games Sucks

SPOILER ALERT


Ok so saying the movie sucks is probably unfair, it wasn't a bad movie, in fact it was somewhat enjoyable (if you didn't have overly high expectations before watching it). It only sucks relative to the many amazing reviews it has been getting, and relative to the great movie it had the potential to be.

I think the main problem is the "Hunger Games" part of the movie itself. The film had an interesting setting and plot, and the first part of the movie did a good job of setting the scene, dark atmosphere and back story, to me this was probably the most enjoyable part of the movie.

Things however, goes downhill very quickly once "The Games" start. What is supposed to be the final climax of the movie, the event that a large chuck of the film (nearly an hour) had been spent building up to, turns out to be a complete anticlimax.

From what we have been told The Hunger Games is the ultimate test in brutality, survival against the elements, and against other contestants. Well first off it seems like they were strolling around their local park, maybe they should have consulted Bear Grylls for the set design of the arena. The dark tone that the first part of the film has set is also quickly loss when the contestants behaves like stereotypical teenagers you might see in numerous generic high school flicks, with the mean popular kids, the outsiders and the bullied, also somehow all perfectly groomed and surprisingly clean despite weeks of brutal jungle combat. It might have been more effective and enjoyable if they instead act a bit more like the kids from Lord Of The Flies.

The fight scenes and action sequences are also really below par. All of them were short and not very exciting, as well as there not being many of them. Understandably maybe most of the core audiences this film was meant for (young girls) don't care too much, but I can't see nothing wrong with making the movie more enjoyable to all demographics, I mean it will only help the film do better overall and it is not like it will detract from the enjoyment of it's core audiences. Films like I Am Number Four has a similar target audience but it still had great action and fight scenes.

Lastly they could have made the main heroine (Katniss) a bit more capable during the games. It seems like she just survived through sheer luck, and from other people helping her for no apparent reason.

Despite the many negatives listed here, I still think the trilogy has great potential and hopefully the next movie will step it up a gear, maybe this first one was just an introduction to the franchise and as such it feels a bit...well...tweenie, which is understandable considering who the film was meant for, but lets give young people some credit, they are much more mature than adults tend to think...heck they are probably more mature than most adults.   

PS. In a way this film is very similar to the reality TV competitions like The Voice or American Idol, where I find the auditions and trainings at the beginning are more fun to watch than the actual competition itself. 



    

  




22 comments:

  1. I really thought the tournament was going to be much grittier also.

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  2. What most people don't understand is that, the books really don't have a censorship, they can talk about gore, blood spatters, and violence. But when it is put on film, there are loads of things the director and producer have to watch out for. They mainly wanted to make a movie that anyone could go out and see, whether they have read the series or not. So they had to stay within the PG-13 rating area. If America's film industry didn't have that type of censorship, or the makers of the movie didn't care about movie ratings, they could of made an exact replica of the books.

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    1. Really? That's possibly the stupidest comment ever, there are plenty of movies PG13 rated with more "gore, blood spatters, and violence." The movie overall just sucked. I agree with the 'Lord of Rant' that it may have had potential but this PoS was a let down, and my expectations were already low.

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    2. Stupidest ISN'T A WORD

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  3. Thanks for the comment, I didn't realize the book had lots of blood and gore (I haven't read the book before). Although I don't really mind at all the fact that the film didn't have much blood and gore. I just wish that the action sequences were more exciting, like for example in I Am Number Four (I don't mean with all the super powers just you know...better fight scenes), a movie with a similar target audience and rating, and the environment of the arena and jungle look and feel a bit harsher.

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  4. everything was too easy.. she didnt have to kill the little girl who helped her, the black guy who saved her and the guy who came from the same district because of the change in rules.. too happy ending for me.

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  5. The shaky camera killed the movie for me, during the action sequences you could barely tell what was going on.

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  6. my friend complained about the shaky camera and blurred action sequences as well.

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  7. I agree, this movie blew. It was a B movie, with high profile actors. Without that, you would have only been able to watch it on cable late night.

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  8. I saw this in Hong Kong, where the movie theater was full of really young kids (way pre-teen). For most of them it was a laugh-out-loud kinda movie (I guess the Chinese subtitles made for an amusing translation). Overall I echo the comments made so far. The set-up was better than the climax. It didn't totally suck, but definitely didn't live up to expectations. All those dark warnings about sponsors being the only way to survive, from a man so scarred by his experience that he needs to keep himself perpetually drunk in order to take the edge off? The insistance that 'they have to like you'. The dolling up. The show. The pagentry. The ranking. So, naturally, I was expecting sponsors to have a far bigger role. TWO PARACHUTES OF FRICKIN' MEDICINE??? And yes, I know they made a big deal of how important the games are, and we were shown that the organiser was kinda screwing things up, but his suicide ending was not well supported at all. Stern words from the drunk guy about how the heroine has no idea how much trouble she has stirred up, but frankly, neither had I, really. It might have been made clear in the books (I don't read teen fiction), but it certainly didn't come across in the film as to why the guy earned himself a death sentence.

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  9. "hey are much more mature than adults tend to think...heck they are probably more mature than most adults." LOL. Are you a tween too?

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  10. Several things bothered me. The small things, too, like...

    *Marvel died from an arrow wound to the neck, not the chest.

    *In the movie, Rue basically told Katniss exactly what to do with the nest. This made Katniss seem too stupid to figure out what to do herself.

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    1. some minor differences they happen almost in every movie coming from a book

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  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  12. ¬¬ i really dont see the big deal with this film, it really does seem like a poor mans battle royal,, and take a look at that film, blood guts gore, if they are going to translate a book to film, do it, dont mamby pamby around for a pg-13 rating if the books full of gore

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  13. Yeah, "The Hunger Games" I felt was a real let down, I haven't read the books though I hear they're extremely good. Here are some of the issues I had with the movie.
    First, the confusion, usually movies that don't betray the book are usually very hard to understand. Like Watchmen, great. But I read the book, to others Watchmen was just a complicated mess. This was the same in the Hunger Games, though I do give props to the screenplay person on how they solved the problem of not having Katniss's point of view. Also, that Rue girl really just felt like a nuisance. I don't know if people actually cared that Rue died, but I didn't really care. This may just be me not reading the books.
    Second, The shaky cam. It's very hard to focus on things when the cameras all over the place, fighting really just becomes a stepping stone in which you have to get over to get back to the good parts of the film.
    Third and finally, The Romance between Peeta and Katniss. Through the whole film, Peeta and Katniss's Romance has just been a staged relationship in order to get sponsorship. But during the cave scene Katniss seems to genuinely like the guy. But its just not believable. Jennifer Lawrence is a great actor, but she really doesn't seem to actually care about Peeta. Some would argue that Katniss risked her life to save Peeta, so she obviously loves him. No, just because you don't want someone to die doesn't make you a love sick puppie. I just feel that Katniss is a nice person. End of Story.
    I really liked "The Hunger Games" when it's good, it's good. When it's bad, it's bad.I'm not sure if you could understand what I meant one sentence ago. But, this series actually has potential. Lets just pray that the mistakes would be smoothed over in Catching Fire.

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  14. I saw the movie for free and I was really glad I didn't pay to see it - I would have been pissed. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did. I felt like I was watching a Disney channel show. I cannot believe the amount of people who think 'Hunger Games' was a great movie - people have really, REALLY low standards.

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  15. This movie was very anti-climactic. So much hype about it and what a let down it was. I agree with the last post, some of the audience who really enjoyed it must have low standards or maybe they just really don't watch a lot of films to see what potential this could have had. I'm not trying to be a film snob about it either.

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  16. This rant sucks. Hunger games is pre teen girl porn. The heroine gets the guy, gets tons of attention and wins the day without having to make any hard decisions.

    Awful horribley written crap.

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    1. I was going to write a lengthy rant expressing my hate for this book/movie... but this post really says it all. Thanks.

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  17. I'll never buy that lame-a$$ piece of $hit movie! It sucked!!! They couldn't keep the cameras still, I had to LEAVE the theater cause I felt sick after a while, and the characters sucked! Had they stuck more truthful to the novel (which also sucked hairy money b@ll$, it was better than the movie), and bought a d@mn tripod for their camera, the film might have been somewhat better. I'll NEVER buy the movie, and because of the poor job done, I'll NOT buy tickets to Catching Fire or Mockingjay (put in two parts to make more money!!! Unnecessary! Sure, Twilight needs two parts, cause that's a lot of information in that last book, but Mockingjay!? Uh-huh!

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