Filmbook: "The Hunger Games" (2012)

Who's excited about going to the movies to watch a bunch of teenagers try to kill each other? Only all of America; "The Hunger Games" opened last weekend as the third-highest grossing movie of all time, beating all four TWILIGHT movies so far (though still not touching "The Dark Knight"'s record). It's refreshing and slightly disturbing how much audiences (and readers before them) have taken to this dystopian vision.

There is plenty of violence in Gary Ross' adaptation of THE HUNGER GAMES, although to maintain a PG-13 it's often presented in choppy, shaky motion. Still, bodies are dropping and our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), the competitor from a Dorothea Lange photograph of a city whom no one expects to survive, sustains some extremely squishy looking wounds in the Games. Ross amps up the "Truman Show" aspect of the original story (say, that movie meets the short story "The Most Dangerous Game") with a fair amount of focus on the diabolical creators of the Games, who throw everything in Katniss' way (or do they?) But a person might find herself wishing that the carnage would hurry up and start.

I don't think this was a purposeful stall, although that would have been clever. I shouldn't have been surprised that "Seabiscuit" Ross' adaptation clocks in at well over two hours, and I'm not opposed to long movies as a rule. But there are times when this movie is not moving anywhere, dwelling on the intimate exchanges and feelings leading up to the Games that don't serve its format. I went to this movie to see fighting, and the magnificent totalitarian architecture (and loopy fashions) of the Capitol! I didn't go to this movie to look at Wes Bentley's beard (although I am strongly considering calling my next band Wes Bentley's Beard) as, playing the Games head designer Seneca, he impenetrably ponders the advice of President Snow (Donald Sutherland, a little toothless) on how to advance this game.

The exception to the waste inherent in this short game is any material involving Lawrence, who could probably do anything after turning in this performance (as predicted). Her ability to naturally depict the loneliness, shock, fear, determination and boredom inherent in her position (who knew waiting for death was a lot like other waiting?) as fluid states changing from moment to moment makes a sometimes-unlikeable character someone to root for. Sometimes she looks like a tough woman, and sometimes like a little girl; she maintains that only she can take care of her sister Prim through winning, despite the support of her mother and her friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth, whose presence here is mainly to bookmark for future installments) but falls into pieces after being separated from her fellow gamesman Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) for only a few minutes. It's remarkable that I watched Lawrence for over two hours and never thought of her badass role from last year as Mystique in "X-Men: First Class," a character who shares certain adolescent dualities and secret strengths with Katniss. (Beyond that, the other real standout I could have watched for so long was Stanley Tucci as Caesar, the Hunger Games "host" doing a sort of psychotic David Letterman with a Mozart pompadour. I'm hoping for a DVD extra consisting of him narrating random things for 2 hours. I'd watch that.)

I'm not such an ardent fan of the trilogy that I came in ready to spot the differences -- enough people can do that -- but two major changes struck me as less than wise (spoilers): First, the movie scraps the book's ending (terrific) to borrow some scenes belonging to its successor CATCHING FIRE, allowing more closure and less climax. This is pure dumb Hollywood at work; didn't "Inception" prove audiences can handle a little cliffhanger with their endings? The scene they should have stopped on is visually so striking, that everything else can only subtract from that. (The Cornucopia, right?) I alluded to the other change earlier: While the entire book takes place from Katniss' perspective, the adaptations includes scenes from Seneca's perspective as well as random interspersed shots of the gamemakers' terminals as they (apparently?) watch the screen instead of doing their jobs, and there was a more effective way of incorporating all those things.

I didn't enjoy this movie as much as the book, but that's okay. I'm still in for the series unless they failed to sign Lawrence for all four movies (which would be mighty foolish).

Filmbook verdict: Read the book, then see the movie if you liked it.