Intriguing story with disappointing results

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2014)

Let me start by saying that I have never read The Hunger Games books and I had no idea what the full story was going to be about. In watching THG, I had hoped to learn more about the fictional time period that our characters are living in, who they are and what their lives were like before being thrown in to main event. Sadly, I was disappointed.
The story line is an intriguing idea: In a post-apocalyptic society, 24 teenage children are culled from 12 poverty-stricken communities and are tossed in to a survivor-like arena where they are expected to fight each other to death purely for the entertainment of the ultra-wealthy class.
And that is about the plot right there. No back-story. No character development. Nothing about Katniss' background, how she became such a good hunter, what family life is like for her or her relationships to Peeta (the other tribute) and Gale (the boy she left behind). THG desperately needs to fill in these gaps to round out the story, but the director chose to ignore these aspects and focus on the main event. Did he assume that every movie-goer watching this film had read the book? Truthfully, one shouldn't have to read a book in order to fill in all the plot holes that a lazy director deliberately avoids. Don't you think?
It should be noted that this is not a kid's film. The idea of kids murdering kids for entertainment purposes is pretty sensitive material for any age let alone adolescents and young teens. However, they did manage to subdue the violence enough to garner a PG-13 rating. Thus making it quite easy to target the younger generation with THG's branded toys and trinkets.
Now don't get me wrong here. Despite it's lack of character development, The Hunger Games is not a bad movie overall. The climatic battle for survival is pulled off rather tastefully. As I said earlier, the violence is subdued to a level where it's not thrown gratuitously in to the face of the viewer. And, for me, that's not a bad thing. I don't really want to see gory battles of children murdering children anyway. As for the rest, the visuals are quite nice. The District 13 city is beautiful. It's citizens are as plastic as you would expect - right down to their monochromatic clothing and hair. Some of the acting is predictably cheesy such as Woody Harrelson as the sarcastic drunk, Haymitch Abernathy, who in 4 days turns in to a supportive mentor. I was actually surprised by Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. His heartfelt sincerity towards Katniss seems believable. So I gave THG a 6 star rating. As the movie is definitely not bad and certainly watchable. It just feels like something is missing. Does that make sense?