Tag Archives: Woody Harrelson

The Hunger Games = (Rambo + Hanna + Condemned)*Battle Royale/ PG- 13 movie with an attempt at R rating.

The Hunger Games is a movie based on the best selling trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, where teens kill other teens so that they can feed their families.

Graphic you say? Yes….

Gory you say?….Yes…

The story of a teenage girl who has two handsome studs fighting for her affection ensuring that every teenage girl on Earth wishes she was in her place, which in turn would lead to the books flying off the shelf ensuring Collins is frolicking in money soon…..YES!

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all game for giving teenagers knives and swords and then seeing them hack each other to death. Weirdly enough I personally felt I might even have volunteered had I been in their place. With the hair growing in weird places, your voice breaking, etc. I think sending me off in a jungle to fight other random kids would be a fun forthright. And this is in a vague but genuine bird’s eye view of the bleak future Suzanne Collins tries to showcase her readers. But the beauty of it lies in not the generic description of what we can expect in the future, but more on how the topic was touched upon and how people when pushed into a corner…learn to fight back.

To give you a brief about the movie (for those who haven’t read the book), it takes place in the future where America has collapsed and is replaced by Panem which is a new country and is divided by 12 districts. Each year two young representatives (or ‘tributes’ as they are called)  from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games which is a part entertainment, part reality television game show. In this ‘show’, all 24 participants (12 girls and 12 boys aged between 12 -18 years) are forced to ‘eliminate’ (a.k.a beat to death) their competitors until there is just one left. When 16 year old Katniss Everdeen’s (Jennifer Lawrence, who looks just as beautiful without the blue make up from Mystique) younger sister Prim is selected, she volunteers to take her place. Thus starts the movie where she and her male counterpart Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson, who I feel has a lot more to offer on screen, provided he picks better roles like in The Kids Are Alright) are literally thrown to the dogs facing off against other tributes who have prepared for this their whole teenage life.

Do they come out tops? Well I think the answer is simple enough for that; what’s more important is how they did it.

The movie has its strengths and most of it lies with its adaptation from the book. The movie perfectly complements the book and thus is brilliantly covered. The second major strength of the movie is the cast. Starting with Jennifer Lawrence a.k.a Katniss herself, who although a lot hotter than the book described, does the job of a ‘tribute’ beautifully, followed by Stanley Tucci as the uber-flamboyant talk show host series and my favorite Woodey Harrelson (who I have enjoyed watching in these kind of roles e.g. Zombieland) as Haymitch who acts his usual take-no-prisoners coupled with the soft-hearted-gooey-I-love-my-protégé mentor. And finally the movie is decently directed. Gary Ross has managed to touch the essence of the book, with the action, the emotion and the storyline all in tandem.

The only drawback was probably the length of the movie. An action packed movie, if goes on for over two hours, effectively kills the entire crash-boom-bang mentality (unless it is an Akiro Kurosawa). Also the development of the equations between the characters wasn’t too well defined which might have taken away some of the movie’s charisma. And finally, the movie has a great build up to the actual “Game”, but due to the shoddy camerawork, if you are looking to find the gore in this movie, it’s a blink and you miss fiasco.

Having stated the cons, it is a really tough ask from a director to capture the essence of a BOOK perfectly within a limited time frame (two hours max). Thus, due credit where it is and a pat to Gary Ross for at least coming close to what Collins might have wanted.

It is believed that this will directly compete with the Twilight franchise and you can see why. The movie centers on a woman who has two very smart looking guys fighting for her attention and she has a bigger problem to solve. The movie has all the elements of making a successful trilogy and if the opening week numbers are anything to go by, it’s completely possible that the movie might make it as one of the most successful movie franchises ever.

I recommend this movie worth a watch, but on a side note would also recommend you read the book. If in the theater with an open mind and a view to see something new, The Hunger Games would not be a bad alternative.