I have been given the task and the honor of being Maddison's official Stumpf Adventure Movie Critic. As her loving husband, I will accept this task with ease. I love discussing movies and asking others for their opinions, so please feel free to chime in with any thoughts about the movies or the reviews I write for them.
For my first assignment, we went to the local Marcus Cinemas to watch the year's 1st blockbuster, The Hunger Games. I have to admit and first say that I did not read the book series and did not understand the great hype for the movie before its release. There was mass hysteria for the movie and no one has even seen one yet. How can a group of people, mainly YA's, be so excited for something that has no history yet. Anyways, I will try to review the movie from a perspective of watching only the movies and having no knowledge of the back story in the books.
WARNING: SPOILER ALERTS WILL BE COMING, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN MOVIE AND DO NOT WISH TO KNOW PLOT, CHARACTERS, ETC.. DO NOT PROCEED
We are told in the beginning credits that a rebellion happened 74 years ago and the districts lost the fight to the Capitol and for now on they must send 2 children to fight in the hunger games every year.
The movie starts out in a dreary, impoverished part of the world. The first thing that I noticed off the bat was the immediate shakiness of the camera. This kind of camera work and direction is a very popular style right now and I think is also becoming very over-used. I think that many movies use this style brilliantly, like Project-X.
We are taken through a town that we know is a working town and the people seem to be sad and poor. Immediately we are introduced to the main character and her peeps. I explained to Maddison that she for sure has the coolest jacket District 12 and a sweet bow and arrow set for such terrible living situation. She meets up with her man-friend in the woods and they discuss their life situation and the impending lottery pick for the hunger games.
After returning from the woods, the drawing is conducted by a very unusually dressed lady, who appears to be from the Capitol because the whole district is dressed in raggedy grey/black clothes and she is dressed vibrantly. Of course the main girl, Katniss tells her baby sister that she won't get picked because her name is in the pot only one time. FORESHADOWING!! Believe it or not she gets picked and then Katniss volunteers as tribute for her sister. I'm thinking she wanted some better targets than squirrels to shoot her bow at. A boy is picked from the crowd as well and they prepare to leave for the Capitol.
As the two go to the Capitol, they meet up on the train with their mentor for the games. He is somewhat of a drunk and Woody Harrelson is wearing a pretty good wig for his character to have a full head of hair. The boy picked, Peeta, is happy to gain some wisdom from the drunkard but Katniss is at first disgusted by him.
They make it to the Capitol and this is when I think the movie got cheesy. Lenny Kravitz showed up as the stylist for the 2 from District 12 and gave them a little spark to look awesome in front of all the sponsors and viewers and the annual parade before the games. Yep, they were on fire riding a chariot in the parade. This was not so crazy in mind, but I feel that the movie went down a little in this sequence. The computer graphics and the background crowds were not done well and detail was not present for me. When they were riding in the chariots, the areas around their bodies were blurry and that was probably the cheapest looking part of the film.
Stanley Tucci made an appearance as the host of the Hunger Games TV show. I liked the aspect of how the games were shown to the Capitol population as a survivor show and not as a slaughter of children. That probably sounds bad, but eh... Tucci had blue hair making him normal for the city. The whole city was the opposite of what the outlying districts were.
The movie's plot begins to thicken at this point as feelings turn from Peeta to Katniss. The people start focusing on her and I felt that he was feeling jealous. Not a good feeling to give someone when they will kill you in a few days.
The games are starting and Woody gives some good knowledge to Katniss, to not go for all the weapons and supplies, but to run. The sequence of the initial moments of the games was probably the best for me. The shaky camera came back, but there was more action. Most the idiots that went for the weapons were killed by the older kids. Maddiosn said that the she thinks the camera was shaky so the fight scene wouldn't be so gruesome and keep its PG-13 rating. I told her that I thought it was shaky so the audience would become more involved in the picture and get a feeling of action and grittiness, but eh....
The whole games is my favorite because the movie is better made during this time. The scenes that took place in the Capitol had to be CG heavy and I hate CG heavy environments. I enjoyed this part because there was so much more action and killing.
By the end of the games, both kids from district 12 were able to survive because they were in love and playing it up for the reality show. The people of the Capitol wanted to see the couple live and be in love. I guess that's good, because I didn't expect him to die and have more movies coming. How else will there be a love triangle in the future. I watched Twilight, I know how this ends.
All in all, I think that the movie was pretty good, not worth the hype though. It's definitely made to be a franchise, and the demographic targeted for this movie will keep watching because they were told they are supposed to like these movies. I'll keep watching because I can't help it, I have to know what everyone knows in movies.
JEFF GIVES
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