3/10. In a dystopian society, two children from each of twelve districts are sent to a ruling capitol to play in "The Hunger Games", a survival match to the death where there can be but one victor. To protect her sister, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to play.
This film had the biggest opening weekend gross for a non-sequel ever when it was released. It piqued my interest because of this fact. I thought I should check it out, for cultural relevance's sake. Hadn't seen any trailers, but I had an idea basically what it was about.
Saw it... didn't like it.
I didn't like it for two reasons:
First, the direction by Gary Ross. Specifically, his decision to use the deliberately-shaky-handheld-extreme-close-up shot favored by the last two Jason Bourne movies' Paul Greengrass. Only Gary Ross takes it to an all new, highly annoying level. Imagine the shakiest parts of the car chase scene from The Bourne Supremacy, multiply it by a shaky factor of two, zoom in to just their faces, and use this recipe when people are having a conversation or simply walking. Now use it for over half the movie. This should give you an idea of what it was like trying to watch this film in the theater.
Second, the juvenile and predictable script by the original novel's author Suzanne Collins and (again) Gary Ross. I don't fault the script as much as the direction, as it is already based off a juvenile and predictable trilogy of novels aimed at youth. But, not being a fan of, nor having ever read the novels, my eye was untarnished with any expectation of adherence to the source material. Thusly, I couldn't care less if the dialogue is just as dull as the novel, I just care that it's dull and that I can pretty much predict the whole movie after the first half hour.
The only reason that I didn't rate this movie a one or a two was the acting. All of the younger actors did a pretty damn good job with the material they were given, as did most of the adults.
If you're a fan of the books, wait for it to come out on video. This way you can at least marginally see whats going on during the shaky scenes and won't have a huge screen of blur to try and sort out.
If you're not a fan of the books, save your time an money and skip it.
