I still can't figure out why the games are the HUNGER Games

Rating: 5/10 (6 April 2012)

Was looking forward to this movie because the trailer suggested it was a mash-up of two of my favorite movie genres: the "most-dangerous-game" movie, in which a human being is forced into becoming the prey of a human being who loves to hunt (Surviving the Game, released in the mid-1990s, would be one such movie); and the "last-man-standing" movie, in which only one person is allowed to prevail in some sort of violent contest that starts out with at least a few participants. Examples of this would be the Death Race (2008) and The Running Man (1987).
The Hunger Games IS that mash-up, along with a mixture of other genres and well established themes or plot lines: the teen romance (too many to name!); the swords-and-sandals epic (from the cheesy late-1950s Steve Reeves movies, to Gladiator, released in about 2000); movies about teens going all violent when they leave civilization (Lord of the Flies); movies about teen who become older but wiser after surviving a violent world made by adults (True Grit); films that remind us that Mother Nature is not our friend, especially when it's beautiful but manufactured by humans; plus a dash of Red Dawn (remade, and due for release in 2012), Deliverance (1970s) and The Blue Lagoon.
But it's a messed-up mash-up.
I haven't read the books (I'm pushing sixty years old!) but I can imagine that if you have, you would know some of the missing pieces that the movie doesn't really clear up. Like: Why HUNGER games? and what exactly is the purpose of them? And, what's the deal with Katniss and Gale...and what's the sex appeal of Peeta, compared to Gale, who appears to have a personality?
The director has elected to include shot after shot after shot after shot that is in very close range despite being in a larger setting of expansive space (forest, Nuremberg-style stadium, etc.). If he was trying to do that to express claustrophobic pressure on a character, that's now a movie cliché...surely there is another way to communicate that kind of emotional state.
Many of those shots were made with a shaky hand-held style that, because of its overuse, can literally nauseate you. If the director says, "Yes, I want my viewers to get nauseated," he is a complete...Well, let's leave it at he's not my kind of director. Too bad because he also directed Seabiscuit, which I like a great deal.
The viewer gets to know almost none of the characters except Katniss and, to a lesser extent, Peeta. Much of the preparation the Tributes complete could be handled in montages, not a multitude of scenes with dialog. The screen time thereby saved could have shown, just for example, one other district team's prep, to serve as good or evil counterpoint to the District 12 team's.
I would have liked to see more of the actual violence of the skirmishes among the tributes. I mentioned Gladiator in an earlier paragraph...that is in my opinion a good example of how primal violence can be handled effectively without overdoing it (well, until the final scenes)...another such example is Braveheart, although some of that does get a bit too graphic.
The basic premise of the movie is unsettling--that kids must kill kids for bloodsport, entertainment or by government orders. But no character really inspects or explores this awfulness...the nightmare of the situation doesn't itself become a source of reflection, anger or regret. It's the old saying of the one-ton elephant in the room that everyone pretends to ignore.
Final verdict: I don't recommend The Hunger Games...maybe wait for it on DVD or Blu Ray but don't rush to see it in theaters.