Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Now Playing: The Hunger Games

I avoided watching The Hunger Games on its opening weekend.  While I truly loved the books, I was not prepared to battle the crowds.  Still, even on a Wednesday night, it was packed with people.  You know, the annoying kind of newbish theatre-goer who has to explain every scene to the person next to them. 

Anyway, on to the movie.

It was...good.  As with the Harry Potter series or Percy Jackson or even LOTR, it's hard for me to put aside obvious comparisons of the movie to the book.  I know it's unfair, but I can't help it.  (Perhaps this is why Game of Thrones is just so good - because you have 10 hours to tell a book, not a mere 180 minutes).  Keeping aside the fact I can count three noticeable changes from the book, the movie was done very well.  And even the changes were ones with which I could agree for the most part.  Could there have been a little more Gale?  Did I miss the Mayor's daughter? Did Haymitch get too soft?  Did I miss the muttations?  Maybe, maybe.  In the end, it doesn't matter.  As a standalone product, THG was an excellent movie.


Jennifer Lawrence was an excellent Katniss, despite my doubts; Josh Hutcherson sold Peeta to me as a worthy candidate more than the books ever did.  And Donald Sutherland as President Snow?  Yeah, they totally mined my brain for that because he was simply frisson-worthy brilliant.  I can't begin to name all the actors who really sold it, because that would get boring - let's just say that everyone pulled their weight.

Special effects department did quite well, too, interpreting the Arena in an interesting way.  Actually, I never quite understood how the Arena worked, even in the books, so kudos to THG team for making that clear.  Nice job on the tracker jackers and the hallucinatory aspects.  LOVED Peeta's "disguise" (again, a hard thing for me to imagine from the book and interpreted beautifully).  I even liked the little silver parachutes.  No complaints on the effects front.

All in all, a great movie:  4 out of 5 stars.

Here are my thoughts on The Hunger Games book trilogy by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger GamesCatching Fire, and Mockingjay as well.

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