Saw it. Loved it. Jennifer Lawrence was excellent, really sold the situation. I thought the ending was a copout though. I know that the people in charge were pissed that they both survived, but to me the main driving factor of the movie was the fact that only one kid could come out alive. That Katniss would either have to kill Peeta or be killed by him. I also find the age differences incredibly unfair. If your district gets two 12 year olds, there's absolutely no way they're going to beat two 18 year olds. If the age limit was 16-18, I'd be more willing to believe it. But the situation is already incredibly unbelievable, so that's just a small gripe.
The movie shows quite well how the government runs the hunger games and how they make sure they get the show they want. The fires and the dog creatures make sure you don't get the opportunity to do nothing. You kill (even if it's only when you are only defending yourself) or you die.
HUNGER GAMES TONIGHT! Because we got....nothing better to do! (I'm sorry, but that's what this thread's title has done to me every time I see it)
Great movie--I loved it a lot! Because of all the hype, I worried I might find it disappointing, but I really wasn't. There were a couple cinematic decisions I didn't like so much. The shaky cam was extremely noticeable to me, and there were also too many close-ups of people's faces. (The one time this latter was effective was during the showdown between Katniss and Clove near the end of the movie--brilliant job by Clove's actress, whose name alas escapes me at the moment.) It's not often that the lead role actor/actress outshines all the supporting actors, but that was definitely the case here. I expected Jennifer Lawrence to turn in a pretty good performance as Katniss. What I wasn't expecting was for her to absolutely blow me away, and that's precisely what she did! Lawrence has a rare gift for being able to convey varied and intense motions with very understated acting. The actors in the HP Deathly Hallows movies attempted this, but not to my mind entirely successfully. Lawrence in THG, however, nailed it. She's my favorite new actress right now. Other honorable mentions acting-wise go to Wes Bentley (and not just because of Seneca Crane's kick-ass beard), Donald Sutherland (I loved the evil Santa Claus vibe the movie had going for Pres. Snow here), Elizabeth Banks (we really needed more Effie in this movie), and Lenny Kravitz. For this last one, I was really skeptical of how a washed-up rockstar would portray Cinna when I first heard he got the part. But I was pleasantly surprised--Kravitz was a great Cinna, and I look forward to the performance he'll turn in in the next movie. Favorite line in the entire film: "THAT IS MAHOGANY!" For those who plan to read the first book and stop there because the other two supposedly suck--good luck with that! The three books read more like three parts of one book, meaning the first two have such cliffhanger endings that you'll be hard pressed not to want to keep going. Anyway, I think people should read all three and make their own determination instead of going on the opinions of others. Sure the latter two (especially the third book) are not as strong as the first, but they're still engaging in their own right. And all three are still a hell of a lot better than what's on offer in many of the Star Wars novels nowadays, but that's an entirely different can of worms.
Racism rears its ugly head Basically, people complained that Rue was black, ecven though the author describes her that way.
I went to see it with friends who haven't read the book, and they enjoyed it but were upset about Rue's death. On the bright side, they may start reading the books now. And they already read the Twilight saga so I won't feel bad if they read Mockingjay.
The first book (the one they made into this movie) is excellent, but apparently the other two are not quite as good. I don't know, though. I read the synopses on Wikipedia and decided they weren't worth reading. It'll be interesting to see how far they inflated the romance angle in the movie. It looks like they've made it into a love triangle, though in the book, the first boy barely shows up and Katniss spends all her time with Peeta either oblivious to his crush or shamelessly exploiting it to stay alive.
I saw The Hunger Games this past Friday night, and I can't get over how damned good it is. I particularly enjoyed just how insane, messed up, and yet the matter of factness of the games were, especially with how it's a television spectacle for the elites in The Captiol (Stanley Tucci almost stole the movie for me)/a hell of reminder to everyone else to not **** with the ruling class. Didn't know that Woody Harrelson was in it, so when he first appeared, I got even happier. Excellent, excellent movie.
I thought it was a pretty brilliant portrayal of the book. I wasn't as moved by some parts* as I was in the book, but I guess I can't fault the movie for that. I'm seriously hopeful that the follow-on movies will manage to make me like Katnis by the end. I doubt it, but maybe. * Specifically, I don't think we saw nearly enough of how awesome Rue was before she died. In the book, Katnis' affection for Rue is very clear and apparent but it was much less so in the movie. I really think that they could have spent 5 more minutes on that relationship and maybe cut out some of the training sequence. It was just too important to everything that happens later for them to have played it so...idk...weakly?
I will give you the same advice I gave Chris, though I may be more successful with you since you haven't started reading yet. Read the first one and stop. That is all.
