Battle Royal light

Rating: 6/10 (22 May 2014)

In the past couple of years Hollywood has piled on the films made from best sellers, from Harry Potter to Twilight. It's a safe bet for the movie makers cause if the books were read by millions (mainly teenagers) then it's likely that people will watch the film. Though the Hunger Games was a lot more serious than those two, apart from say the last 2 potter books, with a more brutal theme if not new because the successful Japanese Battle Royal was out first but Hunger Games was a best seller so Lions Gate made the film. If someone knows how to make something big out of something small that's LG. They didn't have any mega successes but that's why the made HG. First off we can thank Lions Gate for finding a good director and placing a lot of energy on finding the actors. And they got a good script written. They even paid attention to the budget. Let's talk about the story: The nation of Panem consists of a wealthy Capitol ruling twelve poorer districts. As punishment for a past rebellion, each district must provide two "tributes" - one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 selected by lottery (the "Reaping") - every year to compete in the Hunger Games; they must fight to the death in a vast arena, with the sole survivor rewarded with fame and wealth. In District 12, when Primrose Everdeen is chosen in her first Reaping, her older sister Katniss, an expert archer, volunteers to take her place. Peeta Mellark, a baker's son, is selected as the other district tribute. After the two youngsters find sponsors, train they start the HG. Where there is no friendship or innocence only survival. Though the film doesn't clear up a bunch of things, I'm guessing because of time constraints (what's with the hand signal?) they did build up a cool world. Maybe a strange communist world mixed with Rome? Despite that sometimes you can see that they should have spent more money on this or that the set and the filming is great. The atmosphere is great and the awesome music helps that too. The actors are believable, with co-stars like Donald Sutherland, Lenny Kravitz, Woody Harrelson and Stanley Tucci. And the star Jennifer Lawrence has already proved herself before this film in Winter's Bone and she didn't disappoint here either and was someone you can build a franchise on. The film can be split into two parts, I liked the first part better, the whole build up of the show. The actual game was maybe a little jolty. I didn't really get the "there can only be one", animal, killer instinct feeling as their motivators, and I thought there would be more blood, sweat and one on one fights. They probably tied the directors Gary Ross' hands to tightly, because unfortunately watching what rating it got was important plus if you want more blood watch Battle Royal or the Running Man. All in all you can really feel that LG did everything to make something good out of a book from a recycled story, they were paying attention to how much they could potentially make from the franchise. This worked through most of the film but by the end I just thought it was a good job, but it still is good to see that a YA book adaptation can be done well. I give it a 6/10 with the side note that if you want to see genius watch Battle Royal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg0FxMyBLP8