Film review: The Hunger Games

(release in Australia: 22 March 2012)

I must confess that I hadn't heard of The Hunger Games books when I saw a trailer for the movie at the cinema. The trailer made the movie look very teen/tween-esque, so although it starred the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence, I didn’t think much of it.

Then closer to our screening date, there started a pitter patter then thundering buzz on the interwebs. I usually head in the opposite direction of hype, but was curious when I found out it was a dystopian sci-fi tale.

Going into the film, I’d achieved a state of ‘mild and tentative hypement’. I was still mostly clueless about the books and plot apart from a general idea.

If you’d trained a camera on me for the two and a half-ish hours of watching the film, you would have seen a face full of fascination and trauma.

I really identified with the spirit of the main character, Katniss, a strong heroine, as she was forced into playing a Lord of the Flies type game to the death with other teenagers from the poor districts for the TV reality viewing amusement of a rich Capitol populace, in a future post-war America re-named Panem.


I was with Katniss all the way, which meant I was scared all the way! Some comments about the film have been that it shies away from overt images of violence, thereby lessening its impact, however I found the idea of intent scary enough without seeing anything graphic.  

I felt this not too distant future world that the books and film creates is very believable. Our current understanding of morals are very much dependent on the acceptance of everyone, however even now we seem to accept not treating all humans with respect by creating the ‘us’ and ‘them’ division.

I think not reading the books was an advantage as in my experience seeing a film based on a well loved book is often a let down. Movies can’t seem to capture the feeling of time and character development that a book can. Although, The Hunger Games movie is visually stunning.

So now I'm excited for the sequel. At least this franchise seems more thought provoking than some of the other teen movies we’ve had lately. Although I shouldn’t really be one to comment as my tween obsession was Sweet Valley High (soon to be made into a movie by Diablo Cody). 

I was very impressed with The Hunger Games movie, and may even hunt down the books to read, excuse the pun!

I give The Hunger Games a very hungry 4 marshmallows out of 5.

(PS - Read another review on The Reel Bits: http://www.thereelbits.com/2012/03/22/review-the-hunger-games/)