- #MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES MOVIE#
- #MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES FULL#
- #MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES PROFESSIONAL#
#MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES MOVIE#
But this movie about kids being manipulated-literally unto death-manipulates its audience clumsily, and shortchanges it shamelessly. Reading it afterward, though, I was struck by the intelligence, eloquence and subtlety of the first-person narrative, qualities that the screen version, in its mania for hurtling action, manages to bland out.Īll hasn't been lost hurtling action is a pivotal part of the mix. I hadn't read the book before seeing the movie, so I wasn't prejudiced against the adaptation. The book's territory is covered dutifully, with no evidence of a distinctive style, but never explored in ways that might have given the audience access to the workings of Katniss's mind, or the stirrings of her soul. Cool tones dominate Tom Stern's cinematography. Apart from Peeta and Rue, the other Tributes remain shadowy ciphers. On the whole, though, this sprawling, sometimes sluggish movie is most notable for its heavy touch-the sudden change of game rules is handled even more ineptly than in the book, while the ending is downright amateurish-and for its emotional remoteness. (The cast includes Elizabeth Banks as the heroine's grotesquely costumed escort, Effie Trinket Lenny Kravitz as her personal stylist and confidant, Cinna Woody Harrelson as her-and Peeta's-bibulous mentor, Haymitch and Donald Sutherland as the suavely brutal President Snow, who has a wonderfully pithy response to someone who says he likes underdogs: "I don't," Snow replies.) In another, Katniss shares a quiet interlude of compassion and sisterhood with Rue, a younger Tribute played by Amandla Stenberg. In one of them, a televised conversation between Katniss and Stanley Tucci's madcap, blue-pompadoured interviewer, Caesar Flickerman, we see the power of her beauty and honesty, and, at the same time, the ease with which she might be corrupted in the pursuit of celebrity. (Because the rating is PG-13, the killing scenes are not as graphic as they might have been, but they're harrowing enough, thank you very much.)Ī few affecting moments stand out.
#MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES FULL#
Once it does, her life is transformed into that of a killer-in-training with star potential, and the movie is transformed into a frantic mash-up of surreal game show, lethal reality show, fevered Roman spectacle and, starting around the second hour-the full running time is 142 minutes-a string of action sequences staged at a relentless pace with that maddeningly twitchy camera and a singular lack of imagination. Collins and Billy Ray-takes a painfully long time to move Katniss and Peeta out of their town to the garish sophistication of The Capitol. (Josh Hutcherson plays Peeta, a boy from her hometown who, drafted as a co-Tribute, has become one of her adversaries and sees himself doomed as one of her possible victims.)īut "The Hunger Games," which was directed by Gary Ross-the script is credited to him, Ms. Like Ree, Katniss comes from hardscrabble surroundings hunts wild animals for food, though with a bow and arrow, not a gun and copes with her unconcealed fears by pushing through them.
#MOVIE REVIEWS FOR KIDS HUNGER GAMES PROFESSIONAL#
She was, in fact, already a professional actress, and she's doing it again in "The Hunger Games"-not playing a version of herself, though that could also be so, but playing another version of the same character with the same sort of calm and grace. The first time I saw her in a feature film, as the fiercely indomitable Ree Dolly in "Winter's Bone," I would have bet that the filmmakers had found her in the Ozarks, where the story was set, and simply asked her to play a version of herself such was the beauty and flawless simplicity of her performance. Lawrence is the perfect choice for the role. Young audiences are sure to embrace Katniss on screen-the movie is off to an epic start-and all the more so because Ms. Young readers-girls in particular, though not only girls-saw themselves in Katniss's struggles to discover herself to accept her own beauty and physicality without exploiting it and, above all, to survive the savagery while keeping her humanity intact. The unsecret ingredient of its rampant success was turning a dog-eared, dog-eat-dog premise into a coming-of-age story about a strong, resourceful girl, then widening it into a fable of star-crossed lovers. The trilogy was written for adolescents absorbed with their own turbulent history. Older audiences with a sense of movie history will recognize more than trace elements of "The Most Dangerous Game," "Spartacus," "Battle Royale," or "The Running Man." But "The Hunger Games" wasn't intended for older audiences. Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in 'The Hunger Games.'
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