For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
With hype reaching almost absurd levels, it’s almost impossible for even the casual movie-goer not to have heard something about The Hunger Games. The success of teenage cinema has grown to incredible levels with Harry Potter and the Twilight series and obviously studios were not going to rest until they had found the next potentially blockbuster series to present in a similar vein. Depending on box-office receipts – which are all but assured – there is even talk of following the trend of splitting the final book into two separate films, thus making four films out of three adventures. Sound familiar?
Based on a series by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games is a futuristic action/thriller that takes its cue from films such as The Running Man, The Truman Show, and to a degree, the original Rollerball. What used to be
There’s a fundamental problem with the presentation of The Hunger Games that was never an issue with ether Potter or Twilight; or even with the Suzanne Collins books where your imagination did the work; how do you make a murderous thriller for a PG-13 audience out of a story that if presented correctly should really be an R? The answer is by shooting the action in such a way that you can’t always determine exactly what is going on.
The Hunger Games is at first a handsome looking film with high production values until the actual games begin. Artistic decisions appear to have been made based on economics – PG-13 will deliver a larger audience than an R – and as a result, the film suffers. The games themselves – which, after all, is what audiences are going for – are shot on the shaky, hand-held camera that sweeps, swishes and sways at such high-speeds that it gets to the point where much of what you’re watching is a blur and the impact lessened. It’s a jarring effect, especially when you consider that many of the other scenes are shot in a fashion that allows you to actually take in the sights and set designs. Clearly, by not always able to determine what’s happening, the impact of teenagers killing each other – some in defense, some gleefully enjoying what they’re doing – the impact is dulled. It’s not that anyone really wants to see teenage violence presented graphically, but the action and what the teenagers were doing to each other was the point of the book, and if you’re going to make a movie version of a popular book why not do the story justice? In the end, what you have is a watered down version of something that could have been outstanding, but is, in fact, sullied by a studio’s need to maximize its profits and get as many youngsters in the theatre as possible.
On the plus side, however, the casting of Jennifer Lawrence is simply perfect. As Katniss Everdeen,
I went in wanting to have a good time – yes, even I began to buy the hype – and I’m more than aware that all a teenage audience really wants to hear from a reviewer is that the film was great without a critical analysis, but I came out under whelmed. Fingers crossed that part two learns from the mistakes of part one and holds back on the overuse of that shaky-cam. Don’t sit in the first ten rows, and if it’s a packed theatre, feel sorry for those who have to.
