The Hunger Games (2012)

I didn’t really know what to expect with this. I am a big fan of the 2000 film ‘Battle Royale’, so when I hear about a film where a group of people are forced to kill each other, I always think that it’s a rip-off of ‘Battle Royale’. Okay, I know ‘The Running Man’ came out before ‘Battle Royale’, but that’s not the point.

So along comes ‘The Hunger Games’, where twenty-four teenagers between the age of 12 and 18, are selected (Two from each of the twelve districts) and are forced to kill each other. But what else was my problem going into this? The books are aimed at young adults, and the film has a 12A rating. I didn’t really expect this film to have such a low age rating.

Before I actually say anything about the film, there’s one thing I want to address. Apparently after this film was released, there was this talk that ‘The Hunger Games’ was going to be the new ‘Twilight’, and that Jennifer Lawrence was the new Kristen Stewart. But no. No, no, no, no, no. ‘The Hunger Games’ will never be the new ‘Twilight’, because, unlike ‘Twilight’, ‘The Hunger Games’ is actually good. And yes, I have seen ‘Twilight’. Twice. The second time because of my girlfriend at the time. So I can back up that claim.

 

And Lawrence, who plays the main character Katniss Everdeen, can actually show an emotion, unlike Kristen Stewart. Believe me, Lawrence was brilliant, it’s like she was born for this role. She put in so much work and trained so hard for this role, you can see that it was worth it.

Which makes me wonder what the Hell is wrong with people when they said Lawrence wasn’t going to be any good, because she’s a natural blonde. Yeah, apparently hair affects acting talent. No-one thought back to ‘X-Men: First Class’ where Lawrence played Mystique, with red hair. Apparently some people don’t know how hair dye works. Especially when you consider the fact that the actor playing the brown haired Peeta was blonde, and the actor playing blonde Gale was brown haired.

Granted I do have some questions about the film, including hair. Seriously, the hair styles and colours in this are bizarre. Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) is dressed as a Georgian, Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) has a ponytail and bright blue hair, some people have twists and turns in their hair, and clothes fashion ranges from the 1800s to the 3000s. Then on top of that, there’s just things I don’t understand. What’s the Uprising? Why is America a barren wasteland? What’s Panem? Did the country go bankrupt by making one of those flying ships and hovering trains? Why do these twelve districts allow the Hunger Games to occur? Why does the world allow these Games to occur? What the Hell is going on?!

I assume the book, which I haven’t read but now have, explains these things better, and the film does actually explain some details as well. Well, the film explains that the Uprising was when the twelve districts rebelled against the wealthy leaders (Residing at the Capitol), and that the Hunger Games is a way to keep them in check. Why did the districts rebel? I dunno. I’m guessing it’s the old ‘poor vs. rich’ scenario. Again I’m sure the book explains things better.

 

Anyway, after that little tirade about hair, the film is really good. While I was worried about the plot, it was very well pulled off. The flow of the film was brilliant, there were no distractions, there were no abrupt cuts, it was great.

The acting was terrific. Lawrence I’ve already gone over, but we also have Banks, Tucci, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, and legends Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson, they were brilliant. The supporting cast was great as well, most of which are also teenagers, and you know how I feel about child actors. But we had some great performances, including Isabelle Fuhrman, of ‘Orphan’ fame and Amandla Stenberg who gave a brilliant performance in her short amount of screen time. And it’s because of the actors, that the characters are so interesting, they are brought to life you can’t help but fall for them.

 

Effects wise, I expect more gore. But that’s pretty much because of ‘Battle Royale’ and ‘The Running Man’. This was one of the prime examples of ‘less is more’, and where you can still have one of the most horrifying deaths in film history. In fact most parents seem to have complained that this film was too horrific for kids. I can see what they mean with the premise, but what did they expect?

But essentially, this film is brilliant. The acting was superb, the plot was great, the characters are fantastic, there’s really no reason not to go see this film. It’s certainly one of the best this year.