Full of potential, but fell short

Rating: 5/10 (23 September 2012)

I found the dystopian premise interesting - in a seemingly totalitarian future - kinda a mix of the blind obedience of 1984 and the sensuality of Brave New World - children are sacrificed to fight to the death as some remembrance of a rebellion. As hard as the powers to be try to show it in a prideful light, you just can't help but see the sham that it is, how gladiator type of games of punishment towards the working class are turned into frivolous entertainment.
It sounds a lot like society of today. I kept on trying to think about how this dystopia compares to here and now. We have capitalism which we are all on board with thinking is a great thing, but it becomes a dog-eat-dog situation that we rarely really question about being on top or not. We all desire to be on top and yet only a small percentage can be so. The rest of us are moderately compensated with half-decent lifestyles or mostly downtrodden.
This is where the potential lies in this book/movie, but it falls short because I kept expecting the main protagonists to rebel against the games somehow. After all, the whole thing is a show of entertainment, one based in the punishment and suffering of random people for things they have nothing to do with. In the end I found it interesting they'd rather die together than one kill the other - but when the games were suddenly over because of this threat to the entertainment value, and they went on their merry business like they were just glad it was over (instead of being outraged at those who manage these events). I found that incredibly disappointing and the fact that the movie/book lacks this moral makes it feel like the main characters aren't intelligent or worth liking at all. It has all sorts of awareness on how much of society is a total show, but something needs to be done about that. Simply being glad to be alive is a cop out, if you ask me.
I also was expecting more rebellion, anger, etc and less butt kissing from these kids. It reminds me of how much high school graduates suck up to colleges to get admitted, and how college graduates suck up to employers to get work. It's all bull, if you ask me. We're selling our souls/lives to others for their gain, and we pretend we actually care about what matters to them just so we get them to want us. To act like we're commodities and bothering 'selling' ourselves is a profound disgust of this society we live in.
I was hoping the kids would band together and realize that they are the target of mutual punishment and mass entertainment, and that the real enemy is NOT each other, but those in charge. They are only there to end up all (but one) being killed, so why go along with sucking up to the public and acting like a bunch of drama-loving superficial celebrities? It was disturbing how quickly they went to kill each other, and I sincerely hope that such kind of behavior is not in our nature. I would only hope for a future where our children learn to come together to fight bigger enemies than the minor quibbles with each other. I sincerely hope that our youth have the smarts to defy the rules realizing that our world is rigged rather than comply and fight over scraps in the process.
I also found that the whole romance thing between the boy and girl was an interesting thing to 'milk', but I found it so artificial. Obviously he had a crush on her, but I felt like her advancements towards him were out of place, even with the intimate setting of mutual injury and survival. He didn't seem like the kind of guy you'd want her with. His character was so underdeveloped. I felt it was also out of place to introduce in the beginning the friendship she had with the other teen boy from their district only to interject this romance story with some boy she's hardly noticed. I was also waiting for this 2nd guy to somehow find a way to enter the grounds of the game to help her out, etc. It just felt out of place for the other guy to be introduced and that storyline not be fully developed or get some closure on.
You know you've watched a movie based upon a children's/teens' book when you have underbaked stories and sub-stories, no overall moral, and action/violence shown off like it's okay. At least with R-rated films like the James Bond movies, you get a feeling that the guns and violence are okay because it's a 'good vs evil' thing. In a lot of half-baked children/teen books, there is no concept of 'good vs evil'. It just advocates gratuitous violence for no reason.
The total lack of an overall morality when it's so blatant that there should be, just leaves this among a certain fatalistic viewpoint that sadly promulgates a lifestyle of senseless pleasure rather than purposeful living. I feel bad for our youth when they are given stories that are severely lacking in morality. What exactly do they walk away with from all this? In the end, the two main characters end up going along with the sham of an entertainment show. The girl says exactly what the audience wants to hear for mass entertainment, instead of speaking of her true heart and putting these atrocious games in their place.
Our youth absolutely NEED morals to our stories. They need to be told to rebel against a rigged system rather than just be grateful to be alive in the end of a violent lifestyle.