(no subject)
So, I was mostly very happy with the adaptation of The Hunger Games. First of all, Jennifer Lawrence was great, and I apologize for ever doubting in casting her as Katniss. My doubt was always more about her age than her acting skills, but the filmmakers did a good job of making her look younger than she does in real life and I thought she was very adept at portraying Katniss's gravity and determination, and now I can't really imagine anyone else playing her.
I wasn't quite as enthused by Josh Hutcherson as Peeta; he was fine, but I didn't get from him the sense of stubbornness and survival instincts that I got from book!Peeta. My sense of Peeta in the book is that he knows he'll never win in a fair fight because he lacks the skills and training, but he also knows that his intelligence is an advantage and he uses manipulation and trickery to outwit his opponents; that's how he gets the Careers to trust him into letting him tag along at the beginning of the games (to say nothing of the way he uses his feelings for Katniss to both his and her advantage). It's not that movie!Peeta seems to lack smarts, it's just that I didn't get the sense of wiliness from him that I got from the book, though I was pleased that the movie did capture his innate goodness.
Overall though, I was really pleased with the cast. I wish Haymitch had been written to showcase his drunken loutishness a bit more, because I feel like it got underplayed a lot and he cleaned up too fast, but I still liked Woody Harrelson in the role. Elizabeth Banks is so perfectly cast as Effie that it's hard to imagine anyone else playing her. My favorites of the supporting cast though, were Stanley Tucci as Ceasar Flickerman and Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane. I haven't read Catching Fire in a couple of years, and I had forgotten Seneca Crane's fate, so his final scene with the berries made me catch my breath. And Tucci was great at channeling Ceasar's reality-show-host smarminess. Oh, and I also thought Lenny Kravitz was unexpectedly (to me, at least) very good at portraying Cinna's warmth and kindness.
There are certainly some flaws in the movie: I re-read the book recently and was struck this time around by how often Katniss describes the food she's eating, a natural reaction from someone who's been deprived all of her life, so I wish the movie had included the scene of Katniss and Peeta gorging themselves with the first meal they get on the train, to emphasize the "hungry" part of the Hunger Games. I also wish the script had touched on the significance of the mockingjay pin, that it wasn't just a connection to home, but a symbol of rebellion.
I think the biggest flaw though is the ending, which doesn't carry the power it does in the book. I think the screenwriters dropped the ball by making it so Katniss and Peeta appear relatively healthy during the scene with the berries. In the book, Peeta is basically dying from the wound in his leg, and while Katniss isn't dying, she is at the end of her emotional and physical rope. I felt like the suicide-by-berries scene in the movie lacked the desperation I got from it in the book. In addition, I would have liked to have seen the scenes after they're pulled out of the arena and separated, when Katniss wakes up and doesn't know where Peeta is, if he's even alive. I think those scenes were valuable in showing just how much he meant to her. In addition, I think it was kind of a cop-out to not have Peeta lose his leg.
But those flaws aside, I think there's a lot the movie does get right. Katniss and Prim's relationship is well established in just a few brief scenes. Rue's death and Katniss's subsequent breakdown had the grown man sitting behind me sniffling loudly (hee, loud enough that I could hear it over my own sniffles). The Reaping is as grim and heartbreaking as it should be. I've read mixed reactions to the shaky cam, but it didn't bother me, and I thought it was used to great effect in the opening minutes of the games, to convey the chaos and violence without showing enough to jeopardize the PG-13 rating. For the people in my theater, the most shocking act of violence seemed to be Cato snapping the neck of the tribute who had been guarding the supplies; I heard a lot of gasps and a man on the other side of the theater exclaim "Good Lord!" when that happened. I really liked the way Katniss's tracker jacker hallucinations were used to show a flashback of her father's death and the way it destroyed her family. The image of the shack they lived in exploding and then coming back together with her mother virtually catatonic and her father dead was a very literal depiction of the destructiveness of his death, but I thought it was a striking piece of imagery as well as a good way to show how Katniss had become the default head of the household. The contrast between the "haves" of the Capitol and the "have-nots" in District Twelve was depicted very well. I loved how the movie was able to move past Katniss's POV and show the Gamemakers plotting their next move, Haymitch wooing sponsors, and Seneca's meetings with President Snow. I LOVED that they showed the uprising in District Eleven, which readers don't find out about until Catching Fire. I'm glad the filmmakers didn't feel compelled to create the mutts at the end the same way they were described in the book (with the eyes and features of the dead tributes) because while I found that description chilling in the book, I have no idea how they could have pulled it off without it looking ridiculous.
So, while I didn't think it was a perfect adaptation, I did think it was very good, honestly much better than I thought it would be, and now, like so many other people, I can't wait for Catching Fire to hit the theaters!
I wasn't quite as enthused by Josh Hutcherson as Peeta; he was fine, but I didn't get from him the sense of stubbornness and survival instincts that I got from book!Peeta. My sense of Peeta in the book is that he knows he'll never win in a fair fight because he lacks the skills and training, but he also knows that his intelligence is an advantage and he uses manipulation and trickery to outwit his opponents; that's how he gets the Careers to trust him into letting him tag along at the beginning of the games (to say nothing of the way he uses his feelings for Katniss to both his and her advantage). It's not that movie!Peeta seems to lack smarts, it's just that I didn't get the sense of wiliness from him that I got from the book, though I was pleased that the movie did capture his innate goodness.
Overall though, I was really pleased with the cast. I wish Haymitch had been written to showcase his drunken loutishness a bit more, because I feel like it got underplayed a lot and he cleaned up too fast, but I still liked Woody Harrelson in the role. Elizabeth Banks is so perfectly cast as Effie that it's hard to imagine anyone else playing her. My favorites of the supporting cast though, were Stanley Tucci as Ceasar Flickerman and Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane. I haven't read Catching Fire in a couple of years, and I had forgotten Seneca Crane's fate, so his final scene with the berries made me catch my breath. And Tucci was great at channeling Ceasar's reality-show-host smarminess. Oh, and I also thought Lenny Kravitz was unexpectedly (to me, at least) very good at portraying Cinna's warmth and kindness.
There are certainly some flaws in the movie: I re-read the book recently and was struck this time around by how often Katniss describes the food she's eating, a natural reaction from someone who's been deprived all of her life, so I wish the movie had included the scene of Katniss and Peeta gorging themselves with the first meal they get on the train, to emphasize the "hungry" part of the Hunger Games. I also wish the script had touched on the significance of the mockingjay pin, that it wasn't just a connection to home, but a symbol of rebellion.
I think the biggest flaw though is the ending, which doesn't carry the power it does in the book. I think the screenwriters dropped the ball by making it so Katniss and Peeta appear relatively healthy during the scene with the berries. In the book, Peeta is basically dying from the wound in his leg, and while Katniss isn't dying, she is at the end of her emotional and physical rope. I felt like the suicide-by-berries scene in the movie lacked the desperation I got from it in the book. In addition, I would have liked to have seen the scenes after they're pulled out of the arena and separated, when Katniss wakes up and doesn't know where Peeta is, if he's even alive. I think those scenes were valuable in showing just how much he meant to her. In addition, I think it was kind of a cop-out to not have Peeta lose his leg.
But those flaws aside, I think there's a lot the movie does get right. Katniss and Prim's relationship is well established in just a few brief scenes. Rue's death and Katniss's subsequent breakdown had the grown man sitting behind me sniffling loudly (hee, loud enough that I could hear it over my own sniffles). The Reaping is as grim and heartbreaking as it should be. I've read mixed reactions to the shaky cam, but it didn't bother me, and I thought it was used to great effect in the opening minutes of the games, to convey the chaos and violence without showing enough to jeopardize the PG-13 rating. For the people in my theater, the most shocking act of violence seemed to be Cato snapping the neck of the tribute who had been guarding the supplies; I heard a lot of gasps and a man on the other side of the theater exclaim "Good Lord!" when that happened. I really liked the way Katniss's tracker jacker hallucinations were used to show a flashback of her father's death and the way it destroyed her family. The image of the shack they lived in exploding and then coming back together with her mother virtually catatonic and her father dead was a very literal depiction of the destructiveness of his death, but I thought it was a striking piece of imagery as well as a good way to show how Katniss had become the default head of the household. The contrast between the "haves" of the Capitol and the "have-nots" in District Twelve was depicted very well. I loved how the movie was able to move past Katniss's POV and show the Gamemakers plotting their next move, Haymitch wooing sponsors, and Seneca's meetings with President Snow. I LOVED that they showed the uprising in District Eleven, which readers don't find out about until Catching Fire. I'm glad the filmmakers didn't feel compelled to create the mutts at the end the same way they were described in the book (with the eyes and features of the dead tributes) because while I found that description chilling in the book, I have no idea how they could have pulled it off without it looking ridiculous.
So, while I didn't think it was a perfect adaptation, I did think it was very good, honestly much better than I thought it would be, and now, like so many other people, I can't wait for Catching Fire to hit the theaters!