Movie Review: The Hunger Games (2012)

I haven’t really been watching many movies since Christmas. I’ve been buying movies from Shaw on Demand, but haven’t gone into a theatre until The Hunger Games.

Rating: PG-13

IMDB Rating: 7.9/10

The plot according to IMDB:

“Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.”

Put simply, sure. I read the books before the movie adaptation was announced, and I enjoyed it. This isn’t a book review so I’m not going to get too much into it… there are enough reviews about how the movie didn’t hold a candle to the book, how they changed too much, blahblah.

The movie is a great action movie. There isn’t as much character development as I had expected, but the director did a great job bringing the arena to life. The fight scenes were dramatic, and I did feel empathetic toward the characters. 

I’m not going to get too much into the changes in the movie… but I didn’t agree with how they changed how Katniss got the Mockingjay pin (a recurring and important symbol). Also, since so much of the book is Katniss’s thoughts and emotions, it is impossible to portray that in the film without narration or voice over. They didn’t use those, so a lot of the time you just had to focus on her facial expression.

A lot of people said that those who hadn’t read the book would be entirely lost. Well, agree but don’t entirely agree. You don’t really need a degree to know what’s going around, and reading a synopsis before the film isn’t too tough.

Highlights:

•    Nice amount of action
•    Appropriate for younger audiences
•    Good length (2.5 hours)
•    Fantastic costume design
•   Actors did a good job of portraying the characters, it was convincing

Lowlights:

•     Camera was a little shaky during action scenes making it difficult to discern what was happening. At the same time this made it less violent during the obviously vicious scenes
•     Stayed only mostly true to the novel

My Verdict:

This won’t be my favourite film of 2012, but it had a lot of entertainment value. I highly appreciate how dystopian novels are making a comeback in film. I have always been a fan of dystopian novels and I’m happy to see younger generations are enjoying them too.

7.8/10