Such a shame...

Rating: 6/10 (7 April 2012)

I say 'such a shame' because stylistically, this film was close to flawless. It was stunningly beautiful, and I adored the majority of the shots. The use of colour contrast between the settings was wonderful, albeit quite blatant, but then again there's nothing wrong with that. The futuristic quality was good too, and I loved the way in which they portrayed the grotesqueness of the city people as opposed to the lowly and oppressed. And while I'm on the positives, I shall compliment Jennifer Lawrence on an excellent performance.
But I'm afraid that I just had too many gripes with this film for it to be as good as I had been told it was. The first one is not the fault specifically of the film, which is again, I emphasise, a shame. I must admit to not having read the book, but the premise on which the entire story is founded bothered me right through the film, and I have to say that this detracted from my enjoyment of it. Why on earth would 24 young people be made to fight to the death? Because it is 'a tradition'. But then what is the significance of this? And answer came there none. And even if there was an answer in the book, I highly doubt I would find it convincing. It is just not believable enough. And while I accept that futurism and Sci-Fi rarely make much sense, most of the masterpieces you will find in this genre are suitably convincing. The sacrificial aspect of this particular vision of the future just doesn't make any sense to me.
Secondly, the character exploration was poor, at best. Especially Peeta, who came across as nasty, selfish, and condescending the entire film. No doubt there was supposed to be some change, or some equivalent, to make Katniss fall in love with him, but it wasn't there. Why did she protect him? I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that when he 'teamed up' with the others, he was trying to drag them off her scent, as it were, but if this was the case then it didn't come through. It just wasn't obvious enough. And while we're on Peeta, Josh Hutchinson was pretty bad, relying far too heavily on his puppy-eyes (the number of close-ups tells us that much).
We also felt nothing for any of the other 22 'tributes', especially Rue, with whom Katniss looked vaguely like forming a connection with, probably because she reminded her of her sister. But the connection was just not strong enough to evoke any emotion. In addition to all of this, the storyline was far too predictable.
So I do say, 'such a shame', because this was, visually, a pleasure to watch. But was never going to be a great film, purely because of the premise. And that there are other things, which could have been rectified (unlike the premise of the entire story) that weren't, put this film just the wrong side of a 7/10 for me, I'm afraid.