Fabulous scenario, adventurous filming, the best of it makes the rest of it really good!

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2012)

The Hunger Games (2012)
Well, with a sequel already planned you know there is some kind of hook and success here. It's a chilling idea doled out with high drama and great campiness: in the future, a televised ritual annually pits teenagers in a fight to the death as a kind of protection against war. The brutality and primal cheering of the masses bring to mind the Roman matches to the death in the Colosseum. And the superstitions implied (that such a thing would actually work) made me think of the story (and movie) by Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery."
The main character is a young woman already equipped with survival skills. She is the female representative from District 12, and in all there are 24 combatants, a male and a female from each of the dozen districts. Yes, it's eventually a bloody awful affair. In fact, the first half of the movie, before the battles, is the best. It introduces the whole idea, including the pomp and circumstance, the game show atmosphere, and behind-the-scenes primping and strategizing. Stanley Tucci is the host of the show, the Hunger Games as they are called, and he's wonderfully nutty. Woody Harrelson is a jaded and unconventional tutor (and former games winner) for the District 12 pair. And Lenny Kravitz plays an attractive smart stage manager and morale booster.
Dominating in every way is Jennifer Lawrence, who is a good reluctant strong participant. How long she survives you'll have to see for yourself--that's part of the game--but it's how she survives that matters, and how she becomes the target of some of the other "tributes" (as they are called, since the youngsters are bloody sacrifices for peace, ultimately). The scenario is great stuff, the sets and filming and pace of it really first rate. In many ways it's a terrific movie, and it's making billions at the box office for good reasons.
The second half of the film is the grand battle. It amounts mostly a series of encounters between various "tributes," a dwindling number of course. Members of the television audience worldwide are cheering for their own districts to win, and cameras seem to be everywhere. In fact, the control room of the "world" makes clear it's a lot like "The Truman Show" with complete mastery over the elements, the sun, and even invented fires and other threats. (It was all filmed in North Carolina, by the way.)
If you like logic to your ritual barbarism, you'll have to look the other way now and then. Our heroine is singled out for some extra terrors, a bit unfairly, and then avoids other sure death situations by inexplicable kindness or little goodies floated in on metal parachutes. And those ultra-lethal genetically modified wasps? They don't live up to their billing. And why do some giant dog cyber-beasts suddenly attack our heroes and not anyone else?
Nitpicking? Only maybe. There were some avoidable gaffes like this, and it's the director (Gary Ross) who is also the writer who needs to shoulder a little blame there. Or can we eventually attribute some of the limitations here to the young adult novel that forms the basis to it all. There is some background buzz about the movie because of supposed racist and feminist issues one way or another, and I think there is room for argument there because the "types" used in the movie are in fact stereotypes. Some small effort at surprising the audience with better casting would have avoided the criticism and made a better movie. (The wikipedia entry for this movie is stunningly long. Check it out.)
In some ways this is nearly a 10 star movie. It's that good. But it's really too long overall, especially the second half which revels in some pretty basic hunt and kill violence. And there are some cracks in the veneer that drag the whole thing down to simply a fun, inventive, interesting futurist drama. That's good enough.