Hunger Games is based upon author Suzanne Collins books which have been written in recent years. The Games are a tradition in a future society which is called the Capitol in which there are 12 districts. Each district each year must produce two adolescent aged children to participate in death games to find a final survivor. A male and female are chosen by lot to participate in the games. They are escorted to the seat of power where they are trained and schooled in survival tactics so that one of them can emerge the victor. Theoretically, this punishment is enacted to perpetuate the reminder of the past and to offer hope for the future.
I have not read any of the books but each one of the actors and actresses who are in this film have read the books so that they understand the nature of the story and the characters themselves. It is now in the hands of the director to bring the books to life in a film study. Since all I know is the director's version, I am happy to say that the film is good enough for me. I don't intend to read any of the books. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books either. I have seen only one of the Harry Potter films which was again good enough for me.
I liked the Hunger Games as depicted in the film. It is an excellent two hour and twenty minute film...In this case, for once, filmgoers probably got their money's worth of entertainment. The pacing is excellent. The characters are well portrayed, and the drama, tension, suspense, and even human sympathy element keep the movie intact and cohesive.
Basically, the plot is simple. 24 children are chosen to represent their individual districts and are pitted against one another so that one of them will survive this battle. Our story begins with a young 16 year old girl whose younger sister is selected by lot to sacrifice her life in this battle of the fittest. District 12 is known as the coal district, a district which suffers extreme poverty so that our heroine has seen fit to try to hunt in the forest for supplies to sell so that she can help support her widowed mother and younger sister. When her sister is chosen as the next victim, she offers herself as a substitute for her sister by volunteering to do battle with the others. Luckily for her, she meets a trainer who is a survivor of previous games who has been selected to give her and her male competitor advice on how to win at these games. I will call our heroine Kat although her name is Katniss. Early in the story, we learn that she does have a love interest who intercepts her when she is trying to shoot a deer to sell. But she is coupled with a young man to perform in the games who has been a friend to her in the past. As a baker, he is at the store when he sees her lurking about seeking food so he throws her a piece of bread which she takes as a sign that he likes her. Together, the two embark on their journey to survive this battle to the death, knowing that one of them might not return.
The remainder of the movie depicts the struggles that the children have when fighting to the death. On the first day, half the children are killed in the first battle to select weapons while Kat has avoided the early clashes by running into the forest to survive there. Her encounters with a few who also flee that way prove to be uneventful until she unfortunately wanders too close to the edge of the contained boundaries...the onlookers and control group find a way to frighten her to get nearer the center of the action so that she is eventually found by a group of children who have joined forces together. She must somehow find a way to escape them and one of her allies helps her through pointing out a natural weapon, a hive of deadly bees, so that she has to hack her way out of the tree where she is hiding by cutting the limb holding the bees to fall upon the sleeping children who are lying below waiting for her to come down. She is successful, has regrouped, found her ally, and then while destroying a mine field, she returns to find that her ally has been trapped under a fallen net. She tries to set her free but unfortunately, one of the hunters finds them both and attempts to kill them, succeessfully when the young Rue is shot with an arrow in the chest. Kat fights back and kills the attacker, then buries her young friend. At that point her mentor finds a way to save both Kat and her partner from district 12 by creating a way that two from the same distriict can win and be set free. It is a love story..Kat then finds her male partner, feigns love for him, and together they return to the center of action to do battle with one of the few remaining members in the game. In the meantime the control group again has found a means to chase them out of the forest into the center of action known as the cornucopia. They succeed in evading the killer dogs who come after them by crawling atop a hovercraft where they meet with Cato who is in a death battle with Kat's partner...Kat puts Cato out of his misery and only the two from district 12 remain. But the control decides to revoke the earlier order that they can go home together by saying that only one of them can survive. Kat takes over and asks her partner to trust her as she produces wild berries that would instantly kill them...About to commit suicide together, the control group orders them to stop, that none is not hope ever, and agrees that both are the winners so that both can go home together. They then get their crowns of victory, meet with the President of the Capitol, and proceed to go home...There Kat's mother, real boyfriend, and sister await her return.
The movie is very well paced. There is never a time when one is bored, tired of it,or wishing it would hurry up and end. It is an excellent film. However, my one quibble is the fact that it is about children who are set up to kill one another. I do not like that as a plot of a movie which reminded me of Blue Lagoon with Brook Shields whose unhappy ending was about red berries instead of blue and which did end with their death, or The Lottery, a short story by Shirley Jackson, about a woman chosen to diie in the same kind of sacrifical lamb tradition. No matter how well made the movie, the story line is dreadful. Especially in a time when we are dealing with children who are killing each other in schools across America and around the world. To make a movie that does not really glorify killing but does not condemn it has not really made me like or recommend the movie. It is an excellent movie with a good cast of characters. You meet them on the second dvd which does describe how the movie was made.
It is nice for girls to have a heroine but frankly, she is removed from any of the real action so that the film is about a loner who avoids death by staying out of the battles. Once she is able to get a bow and arrow, she shows some ability as a survivor but she is seldom ever aggressively seeking an enemy to kill. She and her first encounter both decide to let each other go. She runs from everyone and without her young friend Rue she would never have found the beehive...without her partner from her district she would have been killed by Cato and his gang...her partner talked them into letting her stay up in the tree while they caught some sleep. Not a very heroic heroine after all.
In the end, she is saved by those who liked her, and only one of them survived. It is a strange movie showing that her gutsy entry into the battle did not really ever follow through until the last scene where she clearly challenges the authorities by nearly committing suicide. She was banking on the fact that they would not let them die and she won that time round.
I liked the film because it showed great pieces of forest land in North Carolina. Since my book is about Alexander's learning how to survive in forests, it appealed to me and helped me to think through some of my scenes. Oddly enough, in this movie, Alexander Ludwig plays Cato...I am sure that is his stage name...I saw a lot of potential ripping off my book on Alexander but in the end, it probably helped me rather than hurt me.
My first draft was written as a piece of entrapment also...I am always aware that I can be ripped off and I always try to find a way to know if I have been or not. The dvd did come through for me in a way that surprised me. Gary Ross is a great director and writer. I respect him. That is all I can say for now.
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