A reasonable film

Rating: 7/10 (8 April 2012)

First of all, I once again find myself appalled by some of the reviews on IMDb, giving the film 1 out of 10 on the basis that "it's a teen movie" or that it waters down the violence. On the first point, teenagers are one of the largest film-going demographics and the films are based on a series of young-adult (re: teenagers) books. Seems like a good fit to me. The second point, about the violence, I have only just started reading the first book so can't make much comment. But books can get away with a lot of things mainstream film-making cannot. If the film had included explicit and deadly violence against twelve year old's there would have been a huge outcry. They chose to make many of the deaths emotional rather than physical - Rue's, for example.
Anyway, enough of the short-comings of other reviews. What of the film itself? It starts strongly by establishing the heroine as a hunter and then swiftly moves on to the "Reaping" where a male and female are chosen to participate in the "Hunger Games", an annual televised blood sport, with one survivor. Think Big Brother meets the Colosseum of ancient Rome. However, from this point the film slows down a lot, what with having to establish a context for the story, showcasing the macabre joy the citizens of the Capitol get from the hunger games and the obligatory training scenes. Some nice moments of dark humour are peppered here and there (look for a scene with Katniss, the only living District 12 victor, breakfast and a knife). But for the most, this second act is bogged down by exposition. However, when attempting to establish such a rich world this often happens.
Things change greatly once the games are under-way. The violence is relatively tame, as noted above and elsewhere. The crew appear to have decided to focus on the emotional elements. Katniss's desire to avoid killing people by simply staying out of their way until they are all finished off by each other or exposure, which the show-runners put a stop to in fairly dramatic fashion. The look of regret when she realises her only way to survive after being surrounded whilst up a tree is to cut loose a nest of deadly genetically engineered wasps. How she lets a lone guard wander off before destroying a supplies cache, when she could have killed him easily. This may be avoiding violence, but the way it is done serves as strong character building work, which turns Katniss from a two dimensional cut-out into a real person.
Many of the films twists (Katniss taking her sisters place, for example) are clearly telegraphed and many emotional moments feel manipulative, not genuine. But I think the latter is a deliberate move by the film- makers as one of the key topics of the film is how the government uses the games to manipulate the population (both of the Capitol and the 12 Districts that support it) and how they manipulate the contestants - blatantly - to achieve that goal. Manipulation is the key subject here and it's handled very well. From a popular TV personality performing the governments agenda wonderfully to the way the games work behind the scenes (rules are changed to get the audience to root for 'star crossed lovers' when it emerges Peeta, Katniss's male counterpart from District 12, has feelings for her). This commentary is what really drives the film along and makes the rather slow second act bearable.
This is by no means a great film, but it's not a terrible one either. It's a 'blockbuster' that tries to carry a strong message. Sometimes the message is overt, other times it's more subtle. It's reasonably well done. 7 out of 10.