Alex Reviews...

The Hunger Games

Surprisingly; I had no knowledge about The Hunger Games up until the hype that surrounded it's release in cinemas this Spring. It was the same with Twilight - maybe I was a few years too old to be the target audience when the books originally came out, or perhaps I was never the target audience, or perhaps I was just plain ignorant, but I didn't really know anything about this series until around a month or two ago. So, I had to read the book first - lest I be one of those people who spouts about how amazing a film is and what a fan I am despite only being privy to it for about 3 and a half minutes. I bought it on a Saturday morning and had finished it on that Saturday evening - it wasn't a particularly long or taxing book, but it was addictive. There were a few points which I found myself confused with, but generally it was a good read - not an amazing read, but a good one nonetheless. I think part of the reason I wasn't overly awed by it was due to it's similarity to one of my teenage loves; Battle Royale. Now, I saw the film adaptation of Battle Royale first in all it's Japanese-gore glory, and then I happened upon the very well done, very graphic manga version, until finally reading the book a few years later. And yes, sure, Battle Royale makes The Hunger Games seem terribly tame in comparison, and I particularly liked the manga version in it's ability to make you truly connect with the characters that you knew were destined for a gruesome demise. But this doesn't mean The Hunger Games is bad in comparison, not by a long shot, because what I've read and seen so far has a lot to offer as well.

Now, again, I haven't read Catching Fire or Mockingjay yet, but like I said I wasn't blown out of the water by the book, but the film seemed to have been getting a fair amount of positive press. And by fair I mean a shit-load of positive press. So I went along with my little sister who also hadn't read the book until a few days beforehand, not entirely sure what to expect but fairly certain I wouldn't feel disappointed. Of course, like most adaptations of novels, the film is cursed by the fact that it has to keep you attention while telling a story in a limited amount of time, so certain scenes were shortened or changed, some characters were omitted entirely, so I'm sure die-hard fans have something to complain about, but not having an extreme emotional connection to the book, I have to say I quite liked the film. I thought Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class, Winter's Bone) did a good job as a stern, bad-ass heroine, and the rest of the casting was pretty decent; Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, and Stanley Tucci added their talent alongside a very sinister Donald Sutherland, and the 'kids' chosen to play the tributes forced to kill each other did a fine job too, with honourable mention to the little sweetheart who played Rue (Amandla Stenberg). The action was pretty tense at times and did a good job of reminding us that this wasn't an action film where you were meant to enjoy the fight scenes, rather fear them, and for those who hadn't read the book each altercation must have had them on the edge of their seats. The settings were particularly impressive, not in the actual arena for the games themselves, but in the scenes leading up to it; a sort of futuristic but still approachable vibe with energetic costumes and smooth architectures. 

In terms of criticisms, at some points I think that if I hadn't forced myself to read the book first, a lot of the fine details would have been lost on me. Perhaps that's a good thing - people should do the work and read first, but some of the details of the premise of the film weren't stressed upon enough, nor the relationship between the two leads. My sister thought that it was a bad idea to have the audience in on the knowledge of what was happening outside of the games, as in the book it is told very much through Katniss' (Lawrence) perspective and you are more in tune with her feelings and thoughts, but I think that it would have been too much to ask of an audience to have them put the pieces together without some form of narration, and that would have taken from the action of the film. Not only that, it would have severely limited the screen time of some of the co-stars, who are sure to help make this series into a success. There are two other pieces of criticism that I don't hold but have heard of - the casting of Rue, Thresh and Cinna as black characters and the how Jennifer Lawrence is apparently too 'chubby' to play Katniss.

Black actors playing black characters: I found this depressingly hilarious that the tweets circulating by what I hope to have been a minority of 'fans' of The Hunger Games expressed an outrage that some of their favourite characters from the book had been 'changed' to be portrayed as black instead of, well, I guess white. No. It wasn't changed. The characters were described as black in the book, and so they're black in the film. In fact, Katniss was described as olive-skinned which is a much more ambiguous reference to what ethnicity could play her. What pisses me off more is - even if the characters weren't described as black, does portraying them with a black actor really destroy the film? I don't think so. Morgan Freeman didn't screw up Shawshank Redemption. Idris Elba didn't screw up Thor - the backlash for that was equally ridiculous - and Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury in pretty much all the Marvel films leading up to The Avengers, well, he kicked ass enough for them to change the way he was presented in the comics. In short, people are stupid.

Chubby Katniss: I understand why people are displeased with Jennifer Lawrence being cast as Katniss, but I don't agree with it. Yes, in the books, Katniss is presented as coming from an impoverished family in the beginning, and is also bound to have lost a fair bit of weight during the Hunger Games itself. But come on, really? This isn't an Oscar winning adaptation of a classic - it would be ridiculous to expect an actor to shed that amount of weight for this sort of film, while still being fit enough to take on what must have been a pretty physical role. Could they have picked a skinnier actress? Sure, maybe, but I don't think the fact the Jennifer Lawrence actually looks like an attractive and normal sized woman takes away from her acting. And, it might not be a popular truth, but producers do want a certain amount of sexiness in their lead roles - and Lawrence is hot. Bella Swan in the Twilight series was meant to be plain and average as an offset to Edward Cullen being carved out of diamonds or whatever, but despite Kristen Stewarts limited acting palette, she is still gorgeous. Like Haymitch says in the film - it helps to be desirable, and in order for The Hunger Games to be the blockbuster that it will be, you need a bit of hotness to catch your eye, which is also why you have Liam Hemsworth - only the little bro of Thor! - and Lenny Kravitz on the roster as well.

All in all, should you see The Hunger Games? Definitely. Should you read the book first? Maybe. Will you be socially estranged if you don't see it? Most probably.

The Girl on Fire