The
basics
The Hunger
Games is a bestselling book by American author Suzanne Collins and is the first
in the ‘The Hunger Games
trilogy’. The book came out in 2008 and was made in to a film in 2012, which
was Directed by Gary Ross. This film is about oppression, survival, punishment,
love and the entertainment industry.
What is
this film about?
After a
great rebellion in nation of Panem, the government devised away to instill fear
in to the public, keep them oppressed, to punish them for the crimes of the
past and to make a good TV show out of it too. What they created was the hunger
games. The hunger game is where they pick one boy and one girl (aged 12 to 18)
from each of the 12 districts to come to the capital and be forced to fight
to the death in there outside arena, where there can only be one winner. We
join this world in the impoverished district 12 as it starts to get ready for
the 74th annual Hunger Games and we start to follow are heroine Katniss Everdeen,
as she has just volunteered for these brutal games to spare her younger
sister.
My views
on it
From the
start of this film it sets out to be very good I must admit, the camera work is
great, the mise-en-scene good, the acting is very well and so on. So what I am
trying to say it ticks all the boxes. But the best thing for me is how they
present the unlucky ones who are involved in the game. As soon as they are
picked from random they enter this new world and gain celebrity status. They
are soon eating the best food, given make overs and are appearing on TV talk
shows. Each of them also try to gain as much popularity as they can due to the
fact it will be beneficial for them and help them get sponsors. This for me brings
a new depth into the game, it’s becomes not just about who is the strongest or
who’s is the fastest but who is the most
popular and who can put on the best show for the public as well. This also
gives a good reflection on celebrity culture nowadays, how people with no
talent can be on reality TV shows like Big Brother and how being popular can sometimes
be more helpful in shows like the X Factor then talent itself.
Like I have
said this film has a lot going for it and I could keep going on and big it up
more but where’s the fun in that, it has some big flaws too and these start to
come about when the game itself begins. For a film that is based around a game
where 24 teenagers have to kill each other, the violence and the action is very
poor. This is all due to the film being made to be a 12A, so it can get a
bigger audience. Because of this the film isn’t able to deliver on one of its
key elements and this goes on to effect other things as well. Due to the action
being weak it makes the game a lot less dramatic and less intense then it
should be. It ruins the atmosphere and this once interesting and clever film
starts to become a bit childish.
One of the
other major problems is that we don’t get to know the other teenagers (beside
the two from district 12) in the games that much. We only meet about half of
them and the half we do see we don’t get to know that well. Due to this, there
deaths in the game become almost redundant, as you don’t have enough time to
connect with them, it’s hard to care if they live or die really. Also it does not set up very well, if we did take
an interest there characters, how we should feel about their deaths. The film doses
try to set up one of the teenagers as a villain and one as being sweet and nice
but there characters are so weak it doesn’t work. So we only take an interest
in the two main teenagers from district 12 and the rest are just plainly boring
cannon fodder to keep the story moving.
So for me
this is a film of two half, the first half is great but as soon as the game
begins its starts to go downhill and fast. But I would have to say I did still
enjoy it and I will be there in the cinema for when the next one is released.
Favourite
Quote
Haymitch Abernathy: Look at you! You just killed... a place
mat!
Rating 3/5
