Saw the Hunger Games last night. I haven't read the book. So everything I'm writing is about the movie, not the book. I don't know what happens in the other 2 books and I don't care. I am a moviegoer and I paid to see a movie.
Even though it wasn't exactly my choice to see The Hunger Games, I actually expected it to be great. All of the reviews I read were positive, people were saying nice things, and usually when there is that much good sentiment, a movie is at least above average.
Not in this case.
There are so many problems with this movie that I can't believe they are being ignored. Here's the first one:
Shaky camera.
This movie has the worst shaky camera that I've ever seen. Now maybe there's a chance that I'm getting old, and the kids love the shaky camera, but I've been a fan of it in the past. In fact, I've never had a problem with it. But this seemed like just bad cinematography. This was confusing-shaky, not active-shaky, and there is a big difference. There's a reason that contraption is called a steady cam, it's because it allows you to keep the camera steady.
Perhaps this was an attempt to be young and hip by an old director, but the attempt failed. It was distracting and took away from the action, instead of enhancing it.
Second major, major, issue with this movie: the flashback scenes between Katniss and Peeta. They made no fucking sense whatsoever. I'm sure if you read the book you totally understood, but for the rest of us, I had no idea what they were about. Here's the flashback:
Katniss lies against a tree, looking sad. Peeta comes out of his bakery (a bakery with left over bread in a place where there is no food?), his mom yells at him, and then he dumps a bunch of bread in front of some animals (animals where there is no food?). Then he sees Katniss looking at him, and he gets a guilty look on his face.
What the hell?!
Supposedly, this was Katniss being hungry, and Peeta GIVING her food. Sorry, but you can't see hunger from a chubby faced girl leaning against a tree, and you can't see giving food to her by dumping it on the ground where a bunch of animals come get it.
Third issue: you know how Katniss is really good at hunting (her rating goes to 11!), well, she never actually hunts anyone or kills anyone. She gets her ass saved multiple times by other people. She has chances to shoot arrows at the bad guys and doesn't (until the end).
Fourth issue. This movie has the worst love triangle that I have ever seen. The Twilight movies are pure garbage, but at least they get the love triangle right. In this movie, one of the sides of the triangle isn't even in the damn movie!
Watching it, I thought for sure the good looking, nonexistent part of the triangle (as opposed to the midget part of the triangle who is completely unlikeable) would run into that forest and enter himself into the games and start kicking ass, then wreak havoc on the developing love between Katniss and Peeta.
But no, we just see him once looking off into the distance for 2 seconds, doing nothing. Passionate stuff.
Fifth Issue. What kind of poor excuse for a TV producer is producing these Hunger Games?
The whole time I was thinking, this movie is ignoring everything we know about reality TV. Maybe if it came out before we'd all seen Survivor, it would be okay. But no, we've seen Survivor and a million other shows that are basically a less harsh version of this, and this is not how things go.
The producers of the Hunger Games are committing the biggest sin of all: they're making bad TV!
The closest Katniss comes to dying is when the producers shoot fireballs at her when she gets too close to the edge of the game. Could you imagine that? Your most compelling character doesn't die at the hands of a competitor, but because of the producer's intervention? That's not what you do and we all know it.
Why do you think the Bachelor producer's didn't tell Ben about Courtney? Because she's a great character and they wanted her to stick around as long as possible. Katniss was Courtney, and you want to see her get caught and killed by the other people, not the fucking fourth wall of TV. Jesus!
There are a million other fun ideas that you could do to make this an awesome TV show, but I'm not going to even get into them. But please rent the movie that this movie (poorly) ripped off, The Running Man, if you want to see a few.
And don't even get me started about the idiotic voice of God that randomly changes the rules of the game midway through and at the end. Who are these amateurs? These games have been going on for 74 years and they're this bad at it? They're just making shit up as they go along? Ridiculous.
SIXTH issue. Before the kids are forced into the slaughter that is The Hunger Games, they are paraded around the city. They all go on a talk show in front of a large crowd and get asked questions.
In this movie, the kids all answer the questions with smiles on their faces, playing to the audience, and having a great time. And then it's the main character, Katniss's turn on the show. So what does she do?
She plays to the audience and has a great time. She even twirls around like a God Damn trained monkey for them.
Huh? That's not what a hero does. A hero tells the world that this system is fucked up and it's not cool. A hero doesn't accept the awful world as it is. A hero shakes her fist and demands justice!
Just look at The Running Man. There is an almost identical scene in it. Arnold is brought out on the show by the flamboyant host in front of a cheering crowd. He's about to be sent into what is basically The Hunger Games.
Arnold doesn't smile for the camera. He doesn't chat up the host. No, instead he says "I'm going to come back here and fucking kill you. I'll be back!"
Yes! That's awesome. That's what a bad ass does. That's who you want to root for.
I've seen some reviews where they brought up a few of these issues, but then the reviewer goes "but overall it's really great!".
I'm sorry, but that is way too much stuff to ignore. A movie isn't great with all of these flaws. It actually sucks.
But what are you gonna do? If there's one thing kids love, it's books. Stupid, make you dumber, books.
10 comments:
Interesting comments, and with twin 12 year old girls I'll be forced to go and see these flaws for myself. But the other thing about having twin 12 year old girls is that the books were laying around and I, um, read them, And everything you complain about is in the book, exactly as you describe it.
I know that the writer-director Gary Ross invited the author in to write the screenplay, and I think the fidelity to the book comes from that decision. But as you point out, I also think it presents problems for the movie, at least for screenwriters. You're the 2nd screenwriting blog I've read that points out these same flaws.
And yet, look at the box office. Kinda makes me wonder if the writer-director didn't make the right decision anyway...
The book is a first person narrative, and I don't think the movie would have worked with a voice-over. It's a very quick read, so I suppose the majority of the audience read it. That would explain why many of these movie flaws were acceptable by the audience.
And the book is part of the amazon prime free lending library, which is the only reason I read it. I read the next two because my wife bought them and the first was actually pretty good.
The shaky cam was awful, but as a whole, I expected the movie to be much worse. Pleasantly surprised.
Off topic but you MUST take this to work with you and get a redemption going!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCNZh41bw0
I agree with many of your points but I just think the issues (besides the horrible shaky camera) weren't as annoying to those of us who read/loved the books. Especially since you get so much more of the characters' back stories. I will say that I read the first one under protest (my book club selected it) but ended up loving it and devouring the next two within 48 hours (I do still stand by my refusal to read or watch anything Twilight related). I found myself liking the actor who played Peeta more as the movie went on...but at first it was really distracting that he isn't all that attractive and that he's shorter than Katniss. He's much more appealing (at least to me) as portrayed in the books.
Anyway, I'd really like to hear your take on the books if you're willing to give them a chance after not liking the first movie.
Reading your comments I couldn't help thinking--you should read the books. Also, I should add that I love the books and the movie. But, I have to agree about the "shaky cam". Apparently in an interview the producer says he wanted to make the movie feel more personal.
(1)flashbacks-i think she does give an explanation about the boy with the bread-but she is also a very proud person who doesn't like to "owe" anything.Also Peeta tells Katnis in the cave that he should have just went to her, to help her and thinks of that day all the time.
(2)hunting, we do see Katniss hunting in the games-but I think she is hesitant about killing ppl-if you remember at the beginning Gale says..you can hunt,katniss says "animals" and Gale tells her it's no different from ppl. Katniss is not an aggressive person-you can see this throughout the movie-and would have a hard time killing anyone.
(3)love triangle-the reason Gale isn't in the games is because someone had to stay and look after Katniss' and his families now that she isn't there. The last thing she says to Gale is.."Dont let them starve." Also, getting to the capital, where the games are held is no small thing (look at Peeta's reaction on the train)and probably cost a great deal of money,something district 12doens't have.
(5)reality tv-it's not about "good"tv it's about amusing the richest ppl in the world-to them it's a holiday they celebrate-they bet on who will win because the tributes are just names on a board meaning nothing to them because their children's names are never entered.Oh and "the voice of god" you hear is the gamemaker who has only had the post for 2 years and has to answer to a president who reminds the gamemaker that the reason for the games is to keep the population in line. But the masses are already rebelling and at the last minute has to change the rules to "fix" the situation after 13 yr old Rue is killed
(6)the tributes are paraded around the city in order to get sponsors. (wealthy ppl who send their favorites gifts during the games)While in the games Katniss and Peeta play up the romantic vibe and are rewarded with medication, which seems to be some kind of miracle drug not seen in her district because it would cost too much. Haymitch tells them it could mean the difference between life and death, so they need to get ppl to like them.
Throughout the movie you have to keep in mind that these Tributes are as young as 13.coming from poor districts, they are farmers and miners and are now expected to be killers, and compete against trained athletes.
Don't forget Hunger Games is a trilogy and some of what you are commenting on may be explained more in the next movie. Also,many parts of the Hunger Games were cut out. You'd have to read the books to decide if these parts would have made a difference in the movie. It is an easy read though, I got through all three in about 5 days. I have to be honest the third book was somewhat disappointing compared to the first two, hoping the third movie will fix up the ending a bit.
Just wanted to share some of my opinions
I agree with most of your points, although it should be noted that many of these problems were straight from the book. For example, Katniss, being the hero, never kills anyone who doesn't "deserve it." As a result, it looks like someone is always bailing her out, which I thought was a weakness in the book.
Anyway, the one thing I want to point out that you missed (and I don't blame you, since the flashback color was terrible) was that the piece of bread Peeta threw on the ground was burnt. So it wasn't extra bread, it was bread that he screwed up, for which his mom screamed at him. But if you weren't looking for the blackened end of the baguette, you wouldn't know what was going on.
Typical big production movie these days... slow and predictable, which made it boring.
I read somewhere that the shaky camera was used to blur the gore, so the film could get a PG rating.
Thank you. I hated this movie and actually walked out and made Arc Light give me my money back :)
Everything you pointed out my husband and I couldn't stop discussing as we drove home disappointed. One point I just couldn't get over was the casting choices! Every actor chosen for the roles looked like they belonged in a cheesy soaps rather than the starving, poverty stricken, squirrel eatin teens they were supposed to be.
It was rubbish.
Not only was it extremely derivative (Running Man, Lord of the Flies, Battle Royal)I thought the script in general was really bad. You point out a lot of what and why it was, but to go beyond that, I had nop idea why these games were happening at all. Sutherland's character said something about a war, and how they restore hope or something. I don't know what kind of f**ked up world gets hope from watching kids slaughter eachother on live tv. I also found the costume design/character names to be idiodic. The ridiculous facial hair and bight, gaudy clothing seemed like something out of a really, really bad anime series from the 80s. And if you want the viewer to care when a character dies, make sure they have more than three lines of dialgoue. I have also hated Jennifer Lawrence in everything thing I've seen her in, and her suckiness in this was pretty much what I have come to expect from her. Hutchinson is also unlikeable, as you stated.
The film was just really, really overhyped and overrated, as I saw next to nothing to enjoy about it, and it was easily one of the worst films I've seen in the past year. When I told people that have read the book what I thought of the movie, they more or less agreed, and said the movie was crap compared to the book. Of course, these people are all mid-twenties to early thirties, so they aren't in the target demographic I suppose.
Overall, this movie reeked of tween spirit, and it was a dreadful, unappreciated stench.
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