I saw The Hunger Games this past weekend at a VERY packed Center Township Cinemark. (I didn’t go crazy and see the midnight show. I don’t do all nighters.) This film, based on the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy, written by Suzanne Collins, has been a highly anticipated event for months now. Here’s my review:
Sometime in the future, there’s a nation, Panem, that was built on the ashes of North America. Panem has 12 districts, like states, that supply the country’s Capitol with everything the citizens need to survive. More than 75 years ago, the districts rose up against the Capitol, were defeated, and Panem’s leaders invented the barbaric Hunger Games to keep the districts in check: every year, in every district, one boy and girl between the ages of 12 to 18 battle to the death in a televised show that’s required viewing for everyone in the country. Only one child can win the Hunger Games, and with a victory comes much-needed extra food for the winner’s district.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) of District 12, the poorest district, volunteers in place of her 12-year-old sister to save her from a certain death in the Games. She’s joined by Peeta, a boy her age to whom she owes a great debt, although she’s never spoken to him.
The pair is mentored by Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), the only living District 12 Hunger Games victor, who’s also the town drunk. He realizes that Katniss, with her excellent hunting bow-and-arrow skills, could finally be a contender in the Games for their District.
So. This is not a happy story. The Hunger Games competition is Survivor, the Miss America pageant, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one. The children who fight in the Games (they’re called tributes) have stylists, who primp and dress them so that the audience will take a shine to them, and possibly send them valuable gifts, like water or medicine, while they’re in the arena trying to stay alive.
There’s even a Barbara Walters-like host who interviews all the tributes before the games, asking questions that will evoke the right responses from the Capitol crowd. (Sometimes I’ve wondered how much lower some reality shows can go. This is my answer.)
Should kids see this movie? Older kids could. How old exactly? That’s up to parents, of course. This film is rated PG-13. It is a violent film where children kill each other because they must, and some of them clearly enjoy it. Not only are they killed by other tributes, the Games arena has been stocked with various deadly genetically engineered animals, fire, and poisonous plants that help to move the action along and/or kill off the tributes so the Capitol audience doesn’t get bored.
For Katniss, an underdog from the poorest district in Panem, to even have a fighting chance at winning the Games is not expected and is not welcomed by Panem’s president. The Districts have been under the tyrannical control of the Capitol now for nearly 75 years, and in most cases, they’re poor and malnourished, made to watch the Hunger Games each year as punishment for an uprising long ago. The people of the districts are like dry kindling, and Katniss’ resourceful game-playing is like a match that could ignite the districts and result in rebellion.
The Hunger Games’ premise isn’t an original story, and the book actually reminded me of several others, including Lord of the Flies and the short story The Lottery. (Remember that one from school? Where the families of a town stone one person to death every year in the belief that their crops will grow?)
But the Hunger Games is still a very inventive story and a suspenseful book, and despite its darkness (or maybe because of it), it’s perfect for the movies. If you go, expect to see lots of action, but there are also scenes that will have you tearing up.
