So Daisy and I saw "The Hunger Games" in theaters. I must preface this with a few facts about my preferences. I normally detest movies based on books. In my opinion, the stories told in the book are so wonderful, that a film adaptation cannot possibly live up to the legacy. Yet they try, and fail miserably. My perfect example is the Harry Potter series. I watched 1 and 2 in theaters and borrowed someones DVD of 3. I was unimpressed with them all. Since then, I haven't watched any of them due to knowing how drastically they would disappoint me.
"The Hunger Games" is not on my crap list like the Harry Potter films though. My problems with Collins's film adaptation run deeper than plot holes and not living up to the book. To be clear, the book is infinitely better, but the movie was good. Based on these findings, I might need to give Harry Potter yet another chance, although the HP films and I have tried to make it work many times. That is neither here nor there though. This is about "The Hunger Games" and not Harry Potter.
One of my biggest issues with the film was casting. I loved most of them, except for Peeta. I found that to be very underwhelming. Maybe they will do more with him in the upcoming films, but I felt he was very un-impactful. I felt his appearance didn't match my image from the story, and I felt he was a bit more useless in the film that the story. One of the criticisms that I heard from others in regards to casting was Rue. Apparently others didn't perceive her to be of African decent as she was cast/portrayed in the film. I shared this sentiment for a while. But the more I think on it, this was perfect. She came from a district known for farming. She worked in an orchard, and due to North Americas past with slavery, the South where farming would occur would have a significant population of slave offspring. This shows how much thought and research Collins put into crafting her masterpiece.
Then beyond that, I felt there were some editing issues and minor acting/directing things that could have been tweaked to vastly improve the overall mood and effect of the film's story. I felt the training scene was woefully slow for as much action that was transpiring. Also, the individual coaching with Haymitch and the interview discussion with Effie was bland. I felt that the book portrayed this entire sequence, post parade(in which I felt Katniss was not as lively as she should have been) to the start of the games was a whirlwind, so much going on that Katniss and Peeta were barely managing to cope. It was a very tense sequence in the book. But the film, to be quite honest, I was bored with this point. I feel like cutting together a bunch of short sets of different activities here(yes changing the story a bit) showing some training, some coaching, some interview work, as if the day was racing along, and things were rapidly changing, would have been true enough to the original story, and would have preserved the feeling of confusion Katniss and Peeta must have been experiencing.
Now we approach the games themselves. Once again, I noticed minor, possibly trivial, happenings that would have had a huge impact on the feeling of the story. When the anouncement was made that both district's tributes could win, Katniss's reaction was pathetic. In the book she yells Peeta's name, showing how much she detests the games and her desire to get out with minimal casualties. Plus, it is a good hint of her developing feelings for Peeta. Then of course due to time constraints, the romantic scene with Katniss and Peeta was severely undeveloped and unexplored.
Other minor things include the color and shape of the cornocopia, the lack of the mutant forms of the dead tributes, and the tributes not not sitting in the background on stage for the interviews, which negatively affected the whole love proclamation thing.
There are surely a few more items I forget that I was displeased with(its been a while since I saw the movie). Since this is a film review and not a book review I will give a different type of rating than the book reviews. This is not a must see film, however for fans of action/adventure/SciFi this is a good addition to the genre. I would give it one and a quarter thumbs up out of two, due to the fact that there are so many better films. In a different form, "The Hunger Games" was a very good film adaptation of a novel, done better than the HP movies in my opinion. For fans of "The Hunger Games" go enjoy the movie, for others looking for an enjoyable movie experience, go view "The Hunger Games". My problems with the film, are nit-picky and minor at best, although they most certainly could have improved the movie with minimal effort.
Previewing upcoming blag posts, I am still working on some topical posts and a few Crichton novels that I need to comment on. In other news I recently ordered 8 books from the Ender's Game series based on very good reviews and recommendations from others. Also, my nice backpacking tent came in, pushing me 1 step closer to being ready for a trip to Havasupai in late August. Now I just need to get in better shape. There will be a blag post about the trip and some wonderful pictures of the area(hopefully). Oh and I heard some interesting video game news, so stayed tuned for an update(I guess we need an intro before that though, which I might publish before this). Until next time my friends, "May the odds be ever in your favor".
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