What I Watched -- The Hunger Games

I joined the crowd and saw The Hunger Games last night!  As per usual I'd have to say it's not as good as the book, but it is certainly enjoyable; they do a good job of condensing the book into two and a half hours.

(Brief plot summary: Katniss must participate in a 24-teenager fight to the death called the Hunger Games.  The other tribute from her "district" is a boy named Peeta.  So off Katniss goes to the Capitol, leaving her best friend Gale behind.)

Probably the hardest part about the conversion is that a reader of the book learns a lot about the situation in District 12 and Panem and the history of the Hunger Games by hearing Katniss's inner dialogue.  Since that can't happen in the movie, they add some dialogue here and there to fill in the gaps.  Mostly it works, sometimes it seems a little forced.

From a film-making perspective, the camera work was a shaky and sometimes distracting.  The rumor I heard is that they needed to keep their PG-13 rating, and they accomplished that by blurring out a lot of the violence between the tributes so it wasn't too graphic.

Probably my favorite single scene in the movie came near the beginning: the Reaping. It's the day when the tributes' names are selected.  Katniss's younger sister is selected, and in a brilliant bit of acting very reminiscent of Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone, Katniss volunteers to go in her stead, as though there is no other option and it's the most obvious choice in the world.  Great work.

I was a little sad there wasn't more of the Katniss-Gale story in this movie, since it plays a critical role in all three books.  Since there's less action in the second movie, maybe they'll flesh things out a bit more the next time around.  And they could add a little heat to the Katniss-Peeta story while they're at it.

Overall I thought the casting was very well done.  Jennifer Lawrence does not disappoint as Katniss.  Because you don't have that inner dialogue, she has to convey a lot just with her facial expressions.  I loved loved loved Lenny Kravitz as Cinna (though I lament that so much of his role in the book was cut for the movie - he was one of my favorite characters).  The beautiful Elizabeth Banks was appropriately flighty as Effie Trinket, and Donald Sutherland acted the part of President Snow well, although some of the dialogue he had to work with seemed a little stilted.  Oh, and let's not forget Stanley Tucci as Ceasar Flickerman and of course Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta's mentor Haymitch.

Bottom line: glad I saw this one; I'll definitely see the others.  But if you couldn't be bothered to even care about the books, don't bother with this either.  It doesn't have stand-alone cred as a great film.