Film Review: The Hunger Games

Director: Gary Ross

Based on the popular trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games opened to the third highest opening weekend box office sales of all time. It was beaten only by The Dark Knight and some film about a wizard or something. The books themselves were very popular upon release so a good movie adaptation could be a real box office smash with 2 more books to be made into movies.

The whole film is slightly tongue in cheek when looking at reality TV shows and how extreme they become just to chase ratings. Tributes not only have to fight each other to the death but also be popular with the viewer's so that they might donate money to help their cause. Becoming popular is crucial if you are to be helped with food and medicine when in need during the games. Some of the ideas used by the tributes and their aides are used constantly during TV shows like The X Factor and Big Brother, there is no doubt that this a slight swipe at those programs.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) during the Hunger Games

The Hunger Games are an annual competition where 24 tributes (children aged 12 to 18) are forced to fight to the death until only one remains and is crowned as the winner, all shown on TV for the public. The tributes are chosen from the 12 districts in a nation known as Panem and are chosen from these districts as punishment for a rebellion against the capital. Katniss Everdeen (the sublime Jennifer Lawrence) becomes the first ever volunteer after her younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is chosen in the lottery. She heads off with Peeta Mallark (unconvincing Josh Hutcherson) to the capital to be trained for 4 days before the games by previous winner Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson on top form once again) who is a drunk that always hated the games.

Jennifer Lawrence is truly astounding as the lead, Katniss Everdeen, managing to pull off the sweet and tender moments with her family and the love interest as well as the kick ass moments where she is taking out other tributes in the games. I have to say she became more and more attractive to me as the movie went on! Woody Harrelson plays a cynical drunk, a role he's probably familiar with, but to great effect and becomes a great mentor to Katniss as the training progresses.

Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks believe it or not) with Katniss Everdeen after she volunteers

The violence depicted during the games is heavily watered down to achieve the 12A rating to open the film out to a wider audience. In most cases you get an idea of what happened to the tributes that've been killed but seem only very limited amounts of blood and gore, you can imagine someone like David Fincher or David Cronenberg could have gone all out on these scenes. Some aspects of the games I wasn't so keen on like the additions at the end to speed it up but this is more down to the book which the film is very faithful to.

 Despite the comparisons I made in my preview of the film, Battle Royale this is not. It has a different edge and is only compared in a plot device that forces children to fight but is carried out in a completely different manner. I for one will look forward to the following two books being made into sequels.

3.5/4 Stand out performance from Jennifer Lawrence in this gripping if slightly watered down version of the book