The Running Girl

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2012)

Yet another epic set in a very dystopian not too distant future. A bankrupt,hungry, dysfunctional and soulless North American country called Panem stages a fight to the death epic featuring teenagers from ages 12 to 18 from the 12 Districts to compete. They train all their lives-sort of like former East German Olympians -for this event where they have to face explosions, fires, being shot at and attacks from rabid wild dogs among other things all filmed on a jerky nausea inducing hand held camera. A backwoods teen with the unlikely name of Katniss Everdeen replaces her sister who was "chosen" to compete, and therefore she must train to prepare for the games. Highly deriverative film "borrows" elements from "The Most Dangerous Game", "Lord of the Flies", "Rollerball" ", "Battle Royal" and last but not least "The Runing Man The games themself are a cross between "Gladiator" , "Fear Factor"and "Survivor", and are quite graphc as teen after teen is eliminated while a zombie like population is forced to watch. The set up takes about half the film's lenght to get there, and once the games begin, the violence starts. Film totally misses the mark because it takes itself way, way to seriously. It would have worked a lot better if it was made as a black comedy or a satire on the so called "reality shows" the author Suzanne Collins obviously based these books on, but no attempt is made to correlate the two. Jennifer Lawrence and the mostly no name cast is good, but they don't do very much other than act grim and self determined to succeed at their tasks. As I have already said ,what this film desperately needs is a tongue in cheek sense of humor to help the story move and lighten things up a bit, but the fimmakers totally blew it. I'm sure the 'tween age girl target audience this film is aimed at probably doesn't remember "The Running Man" with Schwarzenneger where condemned criminals had to compete on a game show to fight for their lives. What made that film work was the dead -on satire , a keen sense of humor, the brilliant and hilarious one liners and the utterly improbable scenario that the audience "got" not too long after the film started. This one uses the same premise, but makes very poor use of it. I'm sure it will do good at the box office with all the hype its been getting, but you will definitely leave the multiplex feeling "hungry" for something more satisfying Also, don't be too surprised if you soon start hearing names like Katniss and Peta becoming popular after the drones who watch this overrated piece of drek deciede to name their offsprings as such .Another P-U movie review from Lou!