Vladimir Rakhmanin reviews the eagerly awaited film adaptation…
Vladimir Rakhmanin
Staff Writer
The Hunger Games, based on a bestselling trilogy of novels, is one of the most anticipated film adaptations in recent years. The hype has been raging for months now, culminating with some seriously stunning reviews from professional critics. At this point, I became interested. Being a massive fan of Battle Royale, a Japanese franchise with a similar premise, I was wary of this being just a Western rip-off, but with the reviewers stating the opposite, I decided to give it a go. And I was seriously, seriously disappointed.
I don’t like shaky cameras. I can, however, look past that in most films and see the quality underneath – The Hunger Games takes this to a whole other level, though. To say that most of the scenes in the film are jerky is an understatement – not only can you not see a lot of the action that occurs because the average length of each shot is a couple of seconds long, but you also feel physically ill from the motion sickness. While this probably allowed the film to get a PG-13 rating, it just doesn’t work artistically.
This brings us to another problem – plot development. The film is two-and-a-half hours long, and not only does it meander through the key points at a glacial pace, it also somehow manages to fail to set up important emotional moments. With all that time on their hands, you would have thought that the scriptwriters would have been able to properly illustrate a tragic event that occurs about half-way, but no – there is absolutely no emotional significance there. I’m sure that this event was very well-done in the books – it just does not function as it should in the film.
Certain moments insult the intelligence of the audience – at one key moment, the protagonist is stung by some genetically-modified wasps which produce hallucinogenic venom. We are explicitly told about the venom at least three times, which just gives the impression that the director thinks that we’re too dumb to remember a single plot point. It is inexplicable, then, when key events are glossed over in a matter of minutes – the backstory regarding the family of Katniss, or the political significance of a certain riot halfway through. These things are simply not given enough weight, and are executed rather poorly.
The premise itself remains intriguing, and the satire on modern day reality TV is also very topical and interesting. In fact, I enjoyed the first half a lot – the art direction was very good, and Jennifer Lawrence is a fantastic actress. It is unfortunate, then, that the film throws all of this out the window later on to focus mostly on the romantic subplot. I won’t lie, this will probably help boost sales at the box office, and I’d rather young teenage girls watch this, as opposed to Twilight, but it’s just such a waste. If done properly, The Hunger Games could have been a genuinely interesting insight into the cruelty of reality TV – instead, it degenerates into a cheesy teen flick.
My final concern is that I have no idea who this is meant to be marketed at. It’s not violent enough to have a Lord of the Flies-style look into the viciousness of young adults, it’s not romantic enough to be Twilight (although judging by the screams of the teens sitting beside me, apparently that was good enough), it’s not shot well enough to appeal to film critics, and it’s not political enough to be a true satire. The film is really, really not deserving of the hype. People who have read the books tell me that they have a more satirical tone to them – this is not present here. Maybe I should read the books. Better yet, I think I’ll watch Battle Royale again. Don’t believe the hype.
