The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games Watched this movie today with my family. While it is still an indirect remake of BATTLE ROYALE it is well made, keep you interested and bottom line it entertains. Not a great or memorable movie though. What I think could had make it better is if there was a little more development on the story of what made that future society the way it is or if the young characters discuss at least once the injustice of the whole Hunger Games or show a little more doom in their dialogue and acting since eventually they are destined to die. The strongest asset of this film is Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in the main role. This girl is a real good actress as she demostrated in Winter's Bones last year. As Katniss she delivers the goods within the limitations of a not fully developed character, but Lawrence has enough charisma and good looks combined with her solid acting chops to make us care for her. Since it is a PG-13 movie, many of the deaths happens off camera or with little blood. Think of a sanitized candy eye Battle Royale and you got The Hunger Games. I can say this since every review keeps comparing it to Twilight: this one is not lame as those vampire chick flicks are. 8/10

 

But....it is for chicks, isn't it? :dunno:

 

Not really. The character of Katniss Everdeen could had been played by a male actor and would not have been much different. Because the lead is a female it doesn't make it a chick flick same way that ALIENS was not a chick flick.

 

Ok the movie has just shattered some box office records and established new ones. With a $155 million three days opening it has become the best opening ever for a non-summer, non-sequel movie. It ranks as the third all time opening just behind Harry Potter & The deadly Hallows Part 2 ($169.2 million) and The Dark Knight ($158.4), beat Alice In Wonderland March record ($116 million) and had a better opening than ALL the Twilight movies. This has become the most successful film for Lionsgate studio. Its previos box office champion was Farenheit 9/11 with $119 million. The Hunger Games had a budget of just $78 million and in three days has grossed worldwide $214.2 million which means studio executives at Lionsgate are drowning in champagne at this moment. Maybe Disney can learn a lesson or two about which books to adapt next time or how to assign a modest budget on a risky venture.

 

Is this "The running man" all over again?

 

2/5

Big big dissapointment here and a waste. The first 30 minutes were good and then it got really stupid and cheesy. Don't be fooled you won't like this movie unless you're a teenage girl. The main actress was really good and that's the only thing good about the movie. The movie hurt itself greatly by being pg13 and not R. The scenes of the killings are non existant. There is zero realism. The action scenes are awful. Most of the acting is horrid. Especially the main male. I gave it two out of five and the reason this thing gets 2 and not zero is because of the ho in the lead role. Stay away from this overrated junk.

 

It's similar to Battle Royale, which was kind of like a cross between The Running Man and Lord of the Flies.

 

battle royale was disturbing, but very good.

watched the hunger games on friday. i was entertained.

 

This is the proper review I was waiting for.

:bears:

 

how has this movie got so much hype that it did this well at the box office? have the books got loads of readers?

 

They replaced Harry Potter as my wee brother's girldfriend's (just turned 18) favourite books around 9-12 months ago. So I'm betting they're pretty big with teenage girls.

 

The book is very entertaining. It's not original, but it's well done and well written.

The Lottery meets The Long Walk meets any of 50 movies that have the same basic premise about fighting to the death.

 

"survival" is another that comes to mind.

 

Like I said in my review it is not without its flaws, but it is an entertaining film.

 

Not really. Maybe it's just me...maybe I'm just to old...and have a penis.

 

Yeah going off the trailer I saw I think I'll skip this one. Battle royal was ok but seems a bit overrated itself.

 

The penny drops.
I'd never even heard of it until I saw this thread and now it's EVERYWHERE.
But of course, this is how Hollywoods targets a new teenage-audience from now on: use a successful book franchise, regardless of whether it might (and usually does) suck, make it into an expensive 'looking' but ultimately half-assed movie, and everyone makes a fortune.

 

The funny thing is that the Twilight Saga had a miserable budget, yet it made zillions.

 

one thing's for sure. hunger games part II will be 100 times better than the battle royale sequel. haha. god that was awful.

 

Yeah all the kids are reading them.

 

Kids reading books is great! That is something that this generation seemed to have lost.

 

I agree.

 

I agree also, but they should keep it to the books and stop making shitty films from them. Worst thing they ever did was to make the Harry Potter films.

 

Well for the studio and everybody involved in it, that was the best decision since it made billions of dollars and turned nobodies into millionaires. It also inspired some people to actually grab a book and read which some had never done in their entire lives except at school. Not a Potter fan, never care too much about it, but some of the films were actually entertaining though a bit too long.

 

I hate Harry Potter. I haven't seen any of the films, but I was pleased that kids were actually reading. Literacy levels in this country have plummeted, it was a great thing. Then they decided to make the films and suddenly a whole generation of kids would rather wait for the next movie to come out rather than pick up the book. Sure, there are kids who might want to read the books after seeing the film, but they would be in the minority.

 

I like the 'arry potteh filims.

 

Hopefully they'll make films out of the Artemis Fowl books.

Hunger Games is a teen book series for sure, but lots of adults read them as well. I know my mother and sister are both in book clubs and they've both read it as part of their respective clubs.

 

:rock1: