[Review] The Hunger Games (movie)
I got around to watching The Hunger Games today...
I'll preface this by saying that I have very mixed feelings about the books. I still enjoyed them, but I didn't love them. So, I was going into the movie thinking it would be a similar experience (and hoping it would maybe be a little better).
You can agree or you can disagree with my thoughts and opinions, but please keep it respectful.
The Good
+ Lenny Kravitz was visually stunning as Cinna. I couldn't connect too much with his acting, but his screen time was limited, so I don't really fault him for that. Not to mention that Cinna is my favorite character, basically, so no acting would have completely met my standards.
+ Whoever played Caeser Flickerman stole the whole freakin' movie for me. That was damn fine acting right there. His parts were seriously my favorite parts. I can't explain this, so I won't even try.
+ The Reaping was incredibly emotional, as was Rue's death
+ The directing and cinematography in this film was breathtaking. askdjkfjdslkfjkds
+ Wes Bentley worked Seneca Crane for me, and Donald Sutherland was amazing as Snow
+ The girl playing Rue was brill
The Bad
+ What have you done to Haymitch? No really, what is this? Because, that is not my Haymitch. Haymitch was one of my favorite characters, so watering him down was very disappointing. He's too clean for me, and not drunk or crass enough.
+ I thought that Jennifer, Liam, Josh captured their characters really well. The problem was, for me, that they didn't really make me care about those characters any more than the book did. I still don't really like Katniss. I'm still indifferent about Peeta. Gale is still my bb.
+ The whole Capitol fashion culture was so unbelievably off for me. In my head, it was still extravagant and motley, but...people didn't look like clowns.
+ Actually, let me just state that most costuming choices didn't work for me.
+ I never got Katniss/Peeta in the books really (and this isn't just me talking as an initial Gale/Katniss supporter either). Collins didn't make me feel it. I thought maybe Josh and Jennifer could, but without first person narration, I actually felt that Katniss/Peeta was worse in the movie. Which, for me, is impressive.
+ The Mutts were totally off for me. Nothing like I imagined.
+ The pacing did seem a little off to me, but that's a common criticism apparently.
+ Prim. I didn't like Prim at all. Instead of highlighting that she's different from her sister, I feel like she just came across as whiny.
+ There was not enough Cinna! (Alright, so the movie could have been about Cinna and there still wouldn't have been enough for me. But shut up. I love him)
+ I didn't like the change in the Mockingjay pin exchange. Also, I didn't like how the tributes couldn't wear one thing from their district.
+ I felt like a lot of the background and history of the Games, characters, etc, was left out, and that's disappointing to me.
+ I thought that maybe the book would lend itself well to a film adaptation given how action packed and visually heavy it was. However, this wasn't the case for me at all. Stripped of Katniss' thoughts, I can actually say that there's a lot of stuff that didn't translate well at all. Some things just felt like they were completely without context. Eek.
+ It could be me, but I felt like Haymitch, Cinna, and Effie had a larger role in the book. Their presences are saturated in the books but seem largely absent from the movie. That's really upsetting for me because they're the characters I actually gave a fuck about.
+ An annoying aside: a lot of the male tributes were men of color. Two tributes were women of color. This was upsetting. Why are all the girls white girls?! Seriously side-eyeing here.
+ The violence was seriously cut down. I get the reasoning behind it. I don't think anyone wanted THG to be an R rated movie. However...the whole story centers around the idea of violence, so like... What do you do with that? It's supposed to be gross and ugly.
So that's it. I don't regret seeing it, and I'm sure if you were a huge fan of the book, you would have loved it. As someone who wasn't a huge fan of the books (just someone who generally enjoyed reading them), this movie was okay. For me, it was totally not worth all the hype surrounding it.
I'll preface this by saying that I have very mixed feelings about the books. I still enjoyed them, but I didn't love them. So, I was going into the movie thinking it would be a similar experience (and hoping it would maybe be a little better).
You can agree or you can disagree with my thoughts and opinions, but please keep it respectful.
The Good
+ Lenny Kravitz was visually stunning as Cinna. I couldn't connect too much with his acting, but his screen time was limited, so I don't really fault him for that. Not to mention that Cinna is my favorite character, basically, so no acting would have completely met my standards.
+ Whoever played Caeser Flickerman stole the whole freakin' movie for me. That was damn fine acting right there. His parts were seriously my favorite parts. I can't explain this, so I won't even try.
+ The Reaping was incredibly emotional, as was Rue's death
+ The directing and cinematography in this film was breathtaking. askdjkfjdslkfjkds
+ Wes Bentley worked Seneca Crane for me, and Donald Sutherland was amazing as Snow
+ The girl playing Rue was brill
The Bad
+ What have you done to Haymitch? No really, what is this? Because, that is not my Haymitch. Haymitch was one of my favorite characters, so watering him down was very disappointing. He's too clean for me, and not drunk or crass enough.
+ I thought that Jennifer, Liam, Josh captured their characters really well. The problem was, for me, that they didn't really make me care about those characters any more than the book did. I still don't really like Katniss. I'm still indifferent about Peeta. Gale is still my bb.
+ The whole Capitol fashion culture was so unbelievably off for me. In my head, it was still extravagant and motley, but...people didn't look like clowns.
+ Actually, let me just state that most costuming choices didn't work for me.
+ I never got Katniss/Peeta in the books really (and this isn't just me talking as an initial Gale/Katniss supporter either). Collins didn't make me feel it. I thought maybe Josh and Jennifer could, but without first person narration, I actually felt that Katniss/Peeta was worse in the movie. Which, for me, is impressive.
+ The Mutts were totally off for me. Nothing like I imagined.
+ The pacing did seem a little off to me, but that's a common criticism apparently.
+ Prim. I didn't like Prim at all. Instead of highlighting that she's different from her sister, I feel like she just came across as whiny.
+ There was not enough Cinna! (Alright, so the movie could have been about Cinna and there still wouldn't have been enough for me. But shut up. I love him)
+ I didn't like the change in the Mockingjay pin exchange. Also, I didn't like how the tributes couldn't wear one thing from their district.
+ I felt like a lot of the background and history of the Games, characters, etc, was left out, and that's disappointing to me.
+ I thought that maybe the book would lend itself well to a film adaptation given how action packed and visually heavy it was. However, this wasn't the case for me at all. Stripped of Katniss' thoughts, I can actually say that there's a lot of stuff that didn't translate well at all. Some things just felt like they were completely without context. Eek.
+ It could be me, but I felt like Haymitch, Cinna, and Effie had a larger role in the book. Their presences are saturated in the books but seem largely absent from the movie. That's really upsetting for me because they're the characters I actually gave a fuck about.
+ An annoying aside: a lot of the male tributes were men of color. Two tributes were women of color. This was upsetting. Why are all the girls white girls?! Seriously side-eyeing here.
+ The violence was seriously cut down. I get the reasoning behind it. I don't think anyone wanted THG to be an R rated movie. However...the whole story centers around the idea of violence, so like... What do you do with that? It's supposed to be gross and ugly.
So that's it. I don't regret seeing it, and I'm sure if you were a huge fan of the book, you would have loved it. As someone who wasn't a huge fan of the books (just someone who generally enjoyed reading them), this movie was okay. For me, it was totally not worth all the hype surrounding it.