Confusing, boring and unpleasant.

Rating: 4/10 (2 August 2013)

When The Hunger Games came out, all non-book fans could think of was Asian flick Battle Royale of which I think is an okay but forgettable movie. Meanwhile, the concept of a televised people vs. people contest always reminded me of Arnie nostalgia-classic The Running Man. In retrospect, it's a pretty cheesy movie, but its execution with all its 80s gritty excess makes the idea chilling and believable in its dystopian world. My biggest problem with The Hunger Games is that never once did I feel the concept fit the world. I think it's a pretty good setup with the idea of a uprising that didn't work and that the upper class would punish them but with a kid v. kid battle to the death? There's something about the film that never once convinced me and it lost me right from the outset.
Perhaps this is because the film so far removed from our world that there's no relatable one. On one hand, there's the districts which feel like a cleaned up Deadwood then there's the Baz Lurhman does Dr. Seuss civilized world. There's no believable sense of time transition from how it can get to its opening written setup to this world with its infrequent odd sci-fi flashes. It's trying too hard to have social commentary. Above all there's no heart beyond teenage angsty feelings and no sense of a morality we can relate to - albeit, Stanley Tucci was a delight and I wish he could host everything ever. Yeah, Jennifer Lawrence's protagonist is brave and I supported her but the writing was so underdeveloped that I found myself confused at what she was or wasn't doing a lot of the time.
The film is just so contrived to try and force the concept to belong in this world. The plot is relatively easy to follow but there's way too many times when I found myself asking "why are they doing this?" without explanation and "why don't they just do this?" without ruling the alternatives out. I feel like the film never took a moral stance on the killings. Sure, the civilized world find it entertaining/punishment and the Deadwood world finds it tragic, fine, but I'm interested in the internal feelings of the ones actually involved. It just felt like their plan was "to win" but strategies were never revealed. Why didn't they just slaughter everyone while they were "training" with all the weapons? If they weren't allowed, why didn't the film demonstrate it beyond the few words "don't fight here"? I never bought it.
Maybe their plan was to just survive the best they could and stay hidden, but this was never stated. Why were people making alliances when there could only be one winner? It never made any sense, especially when there was absolutely no character development. Perhaps this is what you get with a film that's about the one thing it can't show with a PG-13 rating and shaky cam. I imagine these kinds of morality and strategy things are in the book and fans are just filling in these gaps by themselves, but The Hunger Games movie just confused and bored me with its slow plot-hole ridden script, unpleasant hook and unsatisfying climax. Give me The Running Man for the dozenth time instead, at least it has a bit of balls when it comes to its action.
4/10