Laughably bad

Rating: 1/10 (12 April 2012)

On the way home from the Hunger Games we went to the automatic car wash for a bit of entertainment. After wasting two and a half hours in the cinema, watching the suds on the windscreen was a treat. The Hunger Games is desperately slow and gormlessly obvious. The only surprises are supplied by the chronic stupidity of the characters (e.g. constantly wandering around in the open when people with bows and arrows want to kill them), the completely unexplained moral evolution of the good, the bad and the pathetic, the implausible action (e.g. outrunning monster dogs in the dense forest in the pitch dark), and the ludicrous special skills of the combatants (e.g. the ability to make oneself up to blend into rock without any make-up or a mirror). The combatants' acting is wooden. The game show hosts overact and dress stupidly. After the opening 45 minutes waiting for something interesting to happen, the film certainly made me think, but only about how a film as bad as this could be made, released and then positively reviewed. I resorted in the end to making witty asides to my companion and trying, successfully, to give her a fit of the giggles. The Hunger Games is a complete waste of time and electricity. I would like to say that it's the worst film I have ever seen, but I can't because I have seen Battle Los Angeles. Long ago, I saw Battle Royale, of which the Hunger Games appears to be a feeble copy, and I remember is being pretty engaging. Gary Ross, the writer and director of the Hunger Games has written and directed some great films like Big, Pleasantville and Seabiscuit. What happened this time?