The Hunger Games (2012)
I demand tribute for finally spearing this elusive adolescent, after a painful six-week grounding and being confined to quarters I finally managed to evade my captors and hobbled along to my local Cineworld for the very last screening of The Hunger Games, adding my mediocre pesos to it’s incredibly lucrative big-screen run, given that the film is based on an extremely popular series of Young Adult novels who says that youngsters don’t go to the cinema anymore? That $600 million had to come from somewhere, I think the rumors of cinemas death are somewhat premature when coupled with the staggering take of The Avengers which has matched that financial threshold in an unprecedented three days in the US and one week overseas. Anyway, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I missed the biggest SF film since Avatar, at least commercially speaking, and as a fan of dystopian misery this movie was certainly in my crosshairs, besides which I’m ravenous for my celluloid treats after two months of mobility enforced exile. So in terms of context there is nothing I can add that hasn’t already been examined, exhumed, prodded and poked over the past two months of release, so yes blah blah blah The Running Man, oops don’t forget Richard Bachman’s The Long Walk, gosh doesn’t the future world gladiatorial premise remind you of Rollerball with a drizzle of Riefenstahl’s fascist propaganda, everyone seems to have overlooked Punishment Park and finally doesn’t the spectre of バトル・ロワイアル lurk over the entire premise, despite author Suzanne Collins ‘claims’ that the idea came to her after semi-consciously channel surfing between Teen reality shows and Iraq war footage of barely pubescent soldiers, an origin story that sounds plausible enough to me. Thus *exaggerated gasp* it seems that a popular book series and successful film franchise has elements in pre-existing media, both printed and filmed – hold the fucking presses. If you’d like you can cast your originality detectors back to 1932 if you need to secure evidence of humans being hunted for sport and / or entertainment in the mongrel titled The Hounds Of Zaroff otherwise known as The Most Dangerous Game, or maybe you’d like to plunder the B-Movie survival drops of either Turkey Shoot or Death Race 2000, meanwhile I’ll be oggiling the uncertain charms of Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity whilst I’d urge you to impale the action packed antics of this Artemis adolescent, as all things considered this was a flawed but intriguing movie.
We’re twenty minutes into the future and after a brutal American civil war the victors have separated the country into the elites and the proles, with the Capital usurped by what looks to me like eighties New Romantic inspired hipsters via the tutelage of Ancient Rome – yea verily this is a terrifying vision of he future. You can tell it’s a cruel and decadent epoch as the fashion seems to be having your hair dyed prismatic colours, as everyone quaffs strangely hued beverages and the bourgeoise dandys sport ludicrous facial hair, as they all idly await the latest bloodthirsty entertainment to alleviate their privileged ennui. In district 12, an enclave that appears to have reverted back to a Steinbeckian, corrugated iron, out-house dust bowl echo of the 20th century Great Depression we meet Katniss Everdeen (a defiant Jennifer Lawrence), a skilled huntress who volunteers to take the place of her younger sister after she is unfortunately selected to represent her enclave in the Hunger Games, a televised tournament to the death where two young warriors from each of the twelve localities is pitted in mortal combat, in order to pay annual tribute to the defiant victors and ensure no dreams of treasonous revolution is ever entertained. Katniss is joined by her male compatriot Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) and they are spirited away to the capital city to be pampered, preened and prepared by a rather unusual squad of adult counsellors, including previous winner and senior mentor Haymitch (a particularly confused Woody Harrelson), costume designer Cinna (Lenny Kravitz) and Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), a flamboyant instructor whose role seems to be to stand around and look eccentric. After being paraded to the howling masses the juvenile superstars are thrust into the game of murderball with a slightly more homicidal twist, all presided over by a master of ceremonies with the rather bludgeoning name of Caeser Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), and the gruesome games afoot…
After some economic world building and enough broad characterisations to get us on our heroines side the melee is joined, and the restrictions of the films 12A certificate soon surfaces amidst the carnage. The Hunger Games is effective, thrilling and gripping enough cinema of the blockbuster strain, but the SF aficionados might feel a little jilted by the framing device and societal concerns being relegated to the background of what emerges as a traumatic teenage tantrum, a diluted dystopia which just missed the mark for this aging, infirm viewer. Jennifer Lawrence is as feisty and quietly obstinate enough to make you cheer her on once the games finally begins to draw blood and the film’s production design quite wisely decided to soak the film in an effective mélange of ancient Rome and Edwardian degeneracy, I rewatched Logan’s Run during my convalescence which has dated quite badly with its late seventies bouffants and fashions, this movie however is pre-engineered to evade any future criticisms with its early adoption of alternate, modified designs in a world with just about the right temperature of theatricality to shade in the character’s source material silhouettes. Stylistically though the film shows its era, director Gary Ross deciding to broadcast the combat prologue and campaigns in twitchy handicam, with just enough spastic shielding to evade any moments of gruesome violence or any glimpse of puerile entrails, as the camera lurches away in an almost shy and embarrassed fashion.
It would have been much more effective to get a firmer grip on the wider world and societal pulse that is enslaved by this parade of ‘bread and circuses’, instead we get a rather tiresome romantic subplot which I’m sure has propelled the book and films popularity beyond the usual enclaves of the SF attuned pale skinned males, one hopes that this apparent concern with the desensitization to violence/reality TV culture finds more space in the sequels as sanitizing the very behaviour that you are critiquing results in a something of a voyeuristic escape hatch, a compromised buffet when we should have been force-fed the bloated horrors that we, the audience are so eagerly encouraging and endorsing. I just think they are not doing their target audience any favours and frankly it’s a little patronising, I’d wager that the cruelty in any local playground or sixth form common room is all too tangible and isolating than the fictional trials of these movie world avatars, and I’m not sure we need to be sugar coating the idea of youngsters fighting to the death for dwindling resources and opportunities in the current climate, given the accelerating cost of education, dwindling unemployment prospects, disintegrating environment, government incompetence and corruption and oh dear, my soapbox appears to be unsteady – but just what was it that made these novels so successful in the first place hmmm? Anyway it’s a little unfair of me to criticise a film for being something it’s not, and it is encouraging to see a resourceful, cunning, robust female protagonist who isn’t merely a starry-eyed, obedient companion to some faintly abusive male consort – yes I’m referring to that horrendous, dusky franchise – so with reservations I’d recommend The Hunger Games as a lightly satisfying Hors d’oeuvre, I just hope we are served more nourishing material on the next futuristic menu;
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