The Hunger Games and the slow death of cinema

Rating: 1/10 (15 May 2012)

I went to see this movie, without high hopes – but interested in what I thought would be a story focusing mostly on a dysfunctional futuristic society, and the reasons why it has turned to this barbaric way of treating different classes of society. However I had a lot of apprehension about it – with the hints of it probably becoming the next 'Twilight.' My conclusion 2 and a half grueling hours later, is that it is a stupid movie, made for a stupid audience. And it is bad cinema. Its target audience is most definitely the twilight fans lost at the end of the saga.
Every single moment that might not have been 100% clear to the audience, was spelled out even further by a voice over LITERALLY telling the cinema what was going on. For example 'I wonder if they realise that it's a booby trap,' and then 'It looks like she has worked out how this booby trap works.'
The reason that I felt that this story was completely unbelievable, was the explanation of why they have this class system and why they have these 'hunger games.' It was explained that it is a constant reminder of war, and so that there can be a winner that people can support. This is all well and good, if the movie had structured a society around this that worked. Perhaps if they had gone the way of propaganda and brainwashing, pushing the society to see these horrendous games as warnings to the people. This would have fitted in nicely with the media. That the media controls the world and the classes, entertaining the rich by the slow destruction of the poor. I just did not believe that a society that can create trains that travel at the speed of light, and a cream that can cure any cut, that they will treat people so cruelly that they can cheer when children are slaughtered with an axe.
The constant use of shaky close ups, gave me a headache as well as confusing the hell out of me. In the two most important fights, the use of constantly jolting close ups left me unaware who was winning or losing, or even what was happening. It also didn't help that in these two fights, the two people fighting look EXACTLY the same.
And was it just me, or did anyone find this movie a little racist? The whole notion of there being one sector that was mainly black, with black people representing them in the game. This is the sector that starts the rebellion. Also, I found it insane that one of the African American characters spared the life of Katnis because he had saved the life of another young black girl, we see no connection between them previously, and must assume they are on the same team because they are the same race. Also, another huge racial thing I noticed was that the entire upper class were white, there were no Asian's or African Americans, no one from any other race than Caucasian. And the fact that it is a fashion statement that everyone in the upper class paints their faces white, is just way too KKK for me. Maybe I am reading too far into it, but its something I could not ignore and it really offended me.
This movie left me feeling really angry, because I know I cannot just walk away from it and forget about it – there is probably another 5 movies to come – and if the first one is horrible, who knows how truly horrible the others could be.