Review: The Hunger Games

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You guys…this is one of the toughest reviews I’ve ever written because The Hunger Games was a strange experience. It’s a bunch of contradictions, employing you to root for Katniss to survive the Games while not enjoying the violence. This movie also wants you to believe it’s great and in fact times tries to SHOW you, but it’s not.

Unlike many book to film adaptations, The Hunger Games managed to streamline the novel while providing a basic platform for those who have not read the book. The screenplay manages to convey the senselessness of the violence of the games as well as give us a real sense of the world the movie is living in.   I was particularly surprised to see the scenes in the games room and the extra scenes with Seneca and President Snow, they really gave extra gravitas to the games. Ditto the commentary from Ceasar Flickerman about the tracker jackers. My only qualm with the screenplay were that it didn’t flesh out the Katniss-Gale relationship, instead giving us a quick forrest scene and glimpses of Gale looking none to happy at the Peeta-Katniss kisses (something that didn’t pop up till book 2 btw). That aside, the screenplay created a template for the wonderful performances from all the actors. Lenny Kravitz (Cinna), Elizabeth Banks (Effie Trinkett), Woody Harleson (Haymitch), and Liam Hemsworth (Gale) are all great, in their somewhat limited, screen time. All of the tributes, especially Alexander Ludwig (Cato) and Amanda Stenberg (Rue), gave good performances as well. But this was really the Jennifer Lawrtence-Josh Hutcherson show; they gave tour-de-force performances as Katniss and Peeta. I loved how Josh managed to convey Peeta’s sensitive and sensible side, while also not seeming like a pushover. Jennifer brought so much more to the role of Katniss than I thought possible. The reaping scene where she volunteers and the aftermath of Rue’s death were such aces.

As far as my favorite scenes, I thought the reaping was scripted very well and the games scenes were particularly effective, conveying the harsh violence while still being in PG-13 range. That cornucopia scene was just as frantic as it was in the book, and that tracker jacker scene, so harrowing. I’d be remised if I talked about great scenes and didn’t mention the muttations; I legit jumped out of my seat when the first one came at Peeta.

Now after reading that you’d think this was a fantastic movie. However, all these positives are almost rendered moot by the inexplicable directorial/cinematography choices and editing. In a story about teens being forced to kill each other for everyone to watch on tv, the director (Gary Ross) and cinematographer (Tom Stern) tried to amplify the intensity of an already intense story by featuring closeup after closeup and mind-numbing shaky cam. Seriously, I can’t see for the life of me why when you’ve been given such an interesting world would you choose to shoot so close and shake the camera. The way Gary Ross directed this film and how Stern shot it was just so impossibly bad. Every shot felt as if they wanted to pander to the audience, trying to decide how we should feel by presenting it that way on screen. Every shot seemed to be filmed with the thought of “They are supposed to be sad here, let’s shoot and edit just between their faces” or “we’re outside, let’s have the camera look like it’s hitting every rock or tree in this damn forrest.” These choices were maddening as shooting an entire movie this way really took away from the the scenes where they were used most effectively (cornucopia and tracker jacker scenes). If every other shot in the movie is the exact same, by the time you get to a place where you want a heightened sense of reality, you experience diminishing returns.

More importantly, this is a sic-fi film with an immense gaming arena. Why not shoot further away and give us a sense of just how big the arena is or how gaudy the Capital is? This film was shot in 2.35:1 ratio aka WIDESCREEN. To put it into perspective, Lawrence of Arabia was shot on 2.20:1 and yet you never get a feel of the epicness of the story or how small the tributes really are in the grand scheme of things. And the editing, Lord. For a movie almost 2 1/2 hrs long it seems like this was edited like a music video, never sustaining a single shot or take for very long. Look I know action movies are supposed to be energetic but fight scenes have their own energy. Cross cutting furiously or putting the camera right next to two people who are fighting is a cop out. LET THE SCENE BREATHE! How awesome would it have been to see that Clove-Katniss fight had we not been two inches away from their eyelids? Or how the reaping scene could have been even more dreadful if we had seen the entirety of Effie’s walk to the bowl and back to get the names?

I want to give this movie a higher grade because it was scripted perfectly but when you spend most of the movie thinking about how you are going to restore your eyesight and rest your brain then it s not good.

Final Grade: C+, A wonderful script and good performances can’r overcome terrible camera work and editing.

P.S. I hope that they get a new director and cinematographer for the next film

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Terence Johnson

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