“They just want a good show, that’s all they want.”
One the key things a film should always do is that what is happening at every moment on screen matters. If for some reason we are watching a scene only to find out that it is completely usurped by following proceedings then we’re left wondering as to why we even bothered with the useless fat that came before. The Hunger Games, to me all felt like useless fat.
We’re slowly eased into this odd future where a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 each year is forced into participating in what is referred to as “The Hunger Game” where twenty-four children are forced to fight to the death and only one can immerge victorious. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to be this year’s tribute from her district so as to spare her younger sister who was selected. We follow Katniss as she enters the game.
So looking at the film from an overall stand point, I’m not quite sure what it’s about. Yes it’s about Katniss during this period of time as she participates in the game, but at the same time it really isn’t. Is it about the mental struggle that Katniss goes through as she has to bring herself to murder her opponents? Is it about a government that believes they have the right to do this and how a society stands up against this tyranny? Is it about… Yes I can continue to come up with so many angles that I probably would’ve gotten a half-assed grade for in high school doing a book report or something.
Part of me wants to chalk up the love of this film being the fact that it is one of those few stories where a female lead exists that actually goes through something intense and manages a way through it all. Or maybe the fact that it’s based on a book that happens to have a following.
This movie is truly a misguided torpedo of a film where nothing of substance is ever explored. We’re never given a sense of true danger due to the fact that the moments of danger are far and few between and over much too suddenly for us as an audience to process it. The emotional moments with Katniss breaking down because she’s coming to terms with the idea that she has to kill or she could die are barely squeezed into the film and all we’re left with at the end of day is the equivalent of a set of characters who look like they’re going through these beats in such a way that reminds me of an awkward silence that sits between this moment and the next.
The film’s look is disturbingly uneven. While I’m not about to knock fashion choices, but rather the jarring nature of being introduced to this world where everything looks relatively normal, then we reach the capitol where everyone embraced a Lady Gaga design of their own, and then when we reach the arena we’re returned to sense of visual normalcy. It’s oddly off-putting to have a film colour it own self in a manner that barely brings out interest. In Speed Racer the film was so widely coloured that epilepsy was almost surely going to be induced in some audience members, but I remember being so enthralled with it all that I found myself viewing each frame from corner to corner, here however I felt like I was barely able to absorb any of the wide setting that was the world of The Hunger Games other than the woods which we spend a relative amount of time in during the actual games.
When I knew that this film pretty much checked out for me was when I came to the realization that somehow the people within this world were finding the games more entertaining than I was. I wanted to know which footage the producers of the games were showing their audience that I wasn’t privy to. I got the sad romantic subplot of Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), which was weak manipulative soap opera tactics at best.
Part of me is wondering if I’m at fault. There are so many films which people enjoy and I do not for one reason or another. Then certain moments in films I praise come about. Like one of the final scenes in The Hunger Games where Cato (Alexander Ludwig) gives a small monologue about how his purpose is to die, which shines light on the society that they live in and its ridiculousness, which can be taken and put into any sort of mandatory military discussion or such and that moment gave me a glimmer of hope for what this film is really about, but it was so deep into the film itself that it was completely ineffective in every way.