THE HUNGER GAMES (TRILOGY RATING): ★ ★ ★
I considered publishing separate reviews for each of the films in "The Hunger Games" trilogy, but decided against it when I realized that my reaction to all of them was essentially the same. I could go on and on about these movies, but instead I'll be uncharacteristically brief with one collective assessment. I should note that the first film rolled out in 2012, and the last one was released in 2015, although there is a fourth entry in the works that is expected to hit theaters next year.
The're based on the bestselling science fiction novels by Suzanne Collins. I've never read them, but if the movies are anything to go by, they're probably pretty good. In fact, they're probably better than their celluloid adaptations, which wouldn't be a big shocker. But the films aren't nearly as bad as they could have been, and that's saying something given that their casts are surprisingly lackluster and their prevailing mood is rather leaden and dark. I've always wanted to feel enthusiastic for Jennifer Lawrence. She's considered a true talent in the industry, and to some degree her efforts in these movies are commendable. They made her a household name. She carries the films, with the third, "Mockingjay," split into two parts. That is no small feat, especially for someone who at the time was a newcomer.
The films tell a story of a dystopian future in which humankind has destroyed its "modern" globalist civilization, leaving a fractured one in its wake. We find ourselves in the fictional nation of Panem, which appears to be a stand-in for a retired America, a place where peoples are cordoned into numbered districts by race and class, with the wealthy sequestered in a luxurious city called the Capitol. District 12 is a coal-mining region that the teenage protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, and her younger sister, Primrose, calls home. It's a dirt-poor community populated by workers who toil for the Capitol's benefit, and residents who venture beyond its boundary are killed or captured by police and their drones.
An inexplicable feature of this dire futureworld is its annual lottery in which each of the 12 districts have two of their citizens randomly selected to participate in the Hunger Games. The whole point of these games is to be propagandistic entertainment, a bizarre way to update the grisly spectacle of the ancient Roman Colosseum, this time with computer effects. The Capitol uses the shared sacrifice of the district's kin to make martyrs of them and stave off the urge for uprising. Sixteen year-old Katniss volunteers to be a "tribute" in the 74th Hunger Games, and is sent to the Capitol with Peeta Mellark, the local baker's son. What ensues is a somewhat intriguing tradition, with both tributes getting the white glove treatment until they are sent with 22 other youths to fight to the death.
From the first film to "Catching Fire," I was intrigued. Lawrence is stone-faced in nearly every one of her scenes, but when you give her predicament some thought, you can understand why. She survives not by killing, but by cunning. Coloring her drab world are Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, the Hunger Games chaperone, and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, the tributes' pre-game mentor. Adding to Katniss' turmoil are the two young men vying for her heart; Liam Hemsworth is Gale Hawthorne, her childhood friend, and Josh Hutcherson is Peeta, with whom Katniss forms a survival bond. The simmering love triangle element never really finds its boiling point, but on its promise these characters manage to resemble young human beings, and not just youthful future-fantasy caricatures.
It was during "Mockingjay Part I" that I started to feel the weight of the story finally set in. These films are long, with most clocking in at well over two hours. The tonal vibe of repressed humanity struggling for freedom finds traction by the third film, yet ironically this rebellion storyline feels a bit less developed on a thematic level. I'm never fully convinced that the characters have fought their way out of the Hunger Games arena and into a full-blown war with the Capitol, despite how the film pushes this narrative. I don't know if it's the limitations of Lawrence's dramatic range, the fact that the "rebellion" seems to materialize out of thin air (suddenly at the end of the "Catching Fire" we have a whole underground world of schemers ready to start World War Whatever), or if I was merely exhausted. I just know something was off here.
Add to that the problem of suspending disbelief in a futuristic hellscape full of computer-generated booby-traps, lasers, and even an army of subterranean mutants, and by the six hour mark I started to feel a little loopy. How is all of this happening, again? In all of the chaos, and considering the score, wouldn't it make more sense for Katniss to simply leave Panem? You know, quit while she's ahead, and not become the face of a civil war? It's not like there isn't a whole world out there, yet the one created for these movies (and presumably in the novels) is limited to Panem and Panem only. Panem is it. There's nothing else out there, and if there is, it isn't worth escaping to.
With all of this said, I still enjoyed these films. Effie Trinket is interesting with her weirdly retro eighteenth century style seeing gradual shifts from film to film, and Harrelson lets Haymitch develop into a likable character without chewing up the scenery. The motivations for what the characters do are sound enough, if you can believe that Panem's independence is all that really matters to them. Since the films take place in a futuristic nightmare full of highly advanced computers with three-dimensional keyboards, I imagined that I could switch my "disbelief" setting to "off," and that mostly worked.
--- Bill Fontaine
