Monday 26 March 2012

The Hunger Games

Do you know what they call The Hunger Games in Paris? Battle Royale with Cheese!

Great joke. Also, a very concise and accurate review.

Because, put simply: The Hunger Games takes the plot of Koshun Takami's novel Battle Royale and tailors it for the Twilight generation. 

For anyone not in the know, The Hunger Games is a trilogy by Suzanne Collins which has captured the interest of teenage girls looking for life after Edward Cullen. Their popularity is hardly surprising. The books have a strong female protagonist, Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film), and a three-book love story between Katniss and sweetheart, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). 

Admittedly, the plot is pretty cool too. It fits the mould of the Dystopian Death Games genre - particularly Battle Royale - whereby a group of randomly-selected teenagers are told to kill each other by the government for their viewing pleasure. Cue lots of hunting and killing and alliances and betrayals. It's a great concept and has ensured the enduring popularity of Battle Royale and its five-star film adaptation by director Kinji Fukasaku.

The Hunger Games has a promising start. Director Gary Ross makes use of his indie roots and takes time to introduce Lawrence's Katniss, the setting and the idea of the Games. Rather than feeling fantastical, which is always a risk in futuristic films with ridiculous costumes, Ross gives the films a gritty feel with plenty of hand-held cameras, extreme close-ups and different lenses. Like many reputable big-budget films of late, it is fashionable (and respectable) to tackle them with tricks from the indie playbook.

The momentum builds as Katniss and Peeta are both selected for the Games and taken to the capital where they begin their training. This is where the film really hits its stride, as the celebrity culture surrounding the training acts as a brilliant parody of reality TV culture. The unveiling of the contestants is reminiscent of a Big Brother launch whilst Katniss' performance with her bow parallels an X-Factor audition. This is also where the motley supporting cast get their screen time, ranging from memorable (Stanley Tucci's blue-haired host, Woody Harrelson's over-the-hill trainer) to underused (Lenny Kravitz's image consultant, Donald Sutherland's evil President Snow). 

The scenes focussing on the culture surrounding the games are the most original and engaging. Similar films often skirt over these scenes - The Running Man, Rollerball, Death Race - because an 18-certificate audience just wants to fast-track to the violent game itself. Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, a teen audience are much more interested in the costumes and the make-overs and the judges' scores and so naturally Ross directs much of the film's running time to the build-up.

Unfortunately, so much time is directed to the build-up that the audience will be fidgeting in their seats by the time the actual Game starts. And the Game is where the film falters and your interest will wane.

There are numerous problems with the Game, which comprises the second half of the film... 

Firstly, this is a 12-certificate film. Anyone expecting the hyper-violence promised by such a great concept as The Hunger Games will be sorely disappointed. Ross is clearly struggling to hold onto that 12-certificate and manages to negotiate around the gore through huge amounts of shaky-cam (so we never actually see the machete blows land) and far too many off-screen deaths.

Secondly, this is a one-girl show. The entire film is told through Katniss' eyes and, aside from Peeta, the other characters barely get a look in. We know nothing about the other twenty-two kids running around the island getting butchered. A handful of them are lucky enough to bag a line but the rest are just nameless, faceless, character-less fodder to make up numbers. Considering the greatest strength of Battle Royale was the diverse character-list and interconnecting stories, it is a terrible shame that The Hunger Games missed this opportunity. Admittedly, the film-makers were limited by Collins' source material (and she is credited as co-screenwriter) but liberties should have been taken.

Thirdly, the pacing is awful. Ross left himself very little time to deliver the actual Game itself and so you would expect a fast-paced, kinetic Game. Instead, Ross quite happily spends ages filming Katniss tying herself to a tree or staring into the distance or enjoying an extended dream sequence. Plus, with a teen love story at its centre, chunks of the Game time is spent showing Katniss and Peeta getting cosy in a cave. Yawn.

Fourthly, the film regularly borders on nonsensical. Magical ointments are flown in to help Katniss heal (twice!), random fireballs are used to stop Katniss leaving the Game arena and CGI dogs mysteriously pop up from the ground. Are they real or digital? If they are digital, how exactly are they going to harm anyone? Presumably, all of this is explained in more detail throughout the books but, like the Harry Potter films, The Hunger Games demands a lot of foreknowledge from its audience and risks alienating those who don't have the source material of their bookshelf. And those CGI dogs are far too reminiscent of Twilight's wolf pack.

Fifthly, sixthly, seventhly... The list goes on. If only the Game lived up to the build-up, this would have been a very superior blockbuster indeed.

Nevertheless, Lawrence's performance ensures this stays a cut above the Twilight saga. Unlike dreary Bella Swan, Lawrence's Katniss can be added to the canon of great sci-fi feminists, joining the ranks of Alien's Ripley and Battlestar's Starbuck. She is cold but with a big heart, beautiful but deadly, tough but not afraid to cry. Lawrence juggles all of this brilliantly, as you would expect from an Oscar-nominated actress. 

In fact, Katniss shares much with Lawrence's Oscar-nominated Ree Dolly from Winter's Bone. Both are over-protective elder siblings, both live in the wild, both are accustomed to skinning furry animals and both suffer a string of mental and physical abuse to keep their families safe. In many ways, this is Lawrence's definitive performance. It draws on her experience with both blockbusters (X-Men: First Class) and indie flicks (Like Crazy) but also reminds us that Lawrence can carry a film, as we saw in Winter's Bone. With two more The Hunger Games films planned, Lawrence has plenty of opportunity to develop the role into something career-defining. Katniss could be her Wolverine or her Jack Sparrow or her Bond.

With The Hunger Games' box office rising and rising, it is clear that audiences are hungry for more. And provided Lawrence is back and the Game scenes are given an adrenaline boost, we'll be game for more.

Only next time, we'd prefer our Battle Royale without the Cheese. We're not that hungry.

★★




1 comment:

  1. So you're telling me it's better than getting dragged to see Titanic 3D? Pretty please?

    ReplyDelete