Thursday, November 21, 2013

Movie Review: "The Hunger Games" (Gary Ross, 2012)

DYSTOPIAN HUNGER: THE ORIGINAL ADVENTURES OF KATNISS
by Bennett Campbell Ferguson
 Above: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
 
Just like "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" and "John Carter," "The Hunger Games" is a movie whose discourse focuses chiefly on its successful marketing campaign and box office performance ($155 million out of the gate), rather than the nature of the actual story. This has become an unfortunate fate for both good and bad films--there is nothing more irritating than listening to critics and moviegoers jabber about the "phenomenal" success of the "Harry Potter" films when the filmmaking craft behind them presents such an interesting discussion topic.

But "The Hunger Games" is a different creature--a tornado of hype whooshing around an utterly unremarkable film. The movie has already been showered with critical accolades, but I rather suspect that it would not be so loved if the success of the book by Suzanne Collins had made everyone so eager to like the film.

That is not to say the film is without integrity--its conceit creates some opportunities for moral ambiguity, even if they are not fully exploited. It's a dystopian story, about a world where kids are forced to fight each other to the death on television each year. Typically, the contestants are chosen at random by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) disrupts the procedure by volunteering to save her sister Primrose from competing.

If you are adept at sitting through boring seminars, you may stand a chance of staying awake for the next part of the story. As Katniss is taken to the capitol to compete, we are given an excruciatingly detailed account of the decadent society that forces children to compete. No step of preparation for the games is spared--opening parades, training, and grooming are all fully explored. Occassionally, the procedure is disrupted when an authoritarian villain (played by Stanley Tucci or Elizabeth Banks) flashes a voluminous pink dress or a grey pompadour is your face.

These garish details reveal the movie's first failing. There's not doubt that they contribute to the candy-coated ickiness of the film's dystopia, but they also make the villains seem like cartoon characters. They're a far cry from the frightening business-suited baddies from the X-Men and Jason Bourne films.

A few of the competing kids are more compelling. Ms. Lawrence plays Katniss as a bland sleepwalker (though director Gary Ross and editors Christopher S. Capp, Stephen Mirrione, and Juliette Welfling can take credit for that as well), but Katniss' friend and fellow competitor Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is a more compelling figure. The disbelieving and fearful expression on Mr. Hutcherson's face when he's chosen to compete is unforgettable, as is his understanding of a simple fact: he's too scared and vulnerable to win.

But there's more to the character. Several times during the games, he appears to turn against Katniss, apparently to fool her enemies into letting her live. But Mr. Ross has enough since to leave some doubt about Peeta's true goal--what if he really does want to win? Does he half consider letting even his friend die.

There are other moments of complex emotion in the film. Preparation for the games involves a number of parades and TV appearances. Mr. Tucci's TV announcer presents the games as a glorious sports event. This is effectively cringe-inducing, yet there are moments when Katniss and Peeta buy into the dramatic momentum of the games themselves. The willingness of people to embrace the games as popcorn entertainment is horrifying and yet believable.

After all, it is a good show. 24 kids and 23 must die--the possibilities for betrayal and tortured romance are undeniably apealing, in spite of the awfulness. Thrilling and chilling sound effects (like the rhythmic boom of a cannon whenever a kid is killed) by Lon Bender (an academy award-nominee for his brilliant work on "Drive") heighten an punctuate the drama.

But they can't puncture the monotony. "The Hunger Games" is 30 minutes too long--it would take a more imaginative director (like a Christopher Nolan or a Bryan Singer) to grant all its details the motion and poetry required to sustain the film's momentum. The final half of the movie is one long tale of Katniss racing through the forest, defeating her competitors through a series of dully happy accidents.

It all leads to a dissatisfying and intriguing climax. What's fascinating is that Katniss and Peeta's goals never go beyond winning the games--they have no thought of justice or betterment of the world (in an early scene, Katniss doubts whether anything can stop the games from existing).

But if the choice this sour editing note shows some introspective integrity on the part of the filmmakers, it also makes the film seem a little hollow. All that death in one movie--it feels like it should mean something more.

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