The YA film adaptation craze that popularised much of the late 00’s and early 10’s came to an abrupt decline around 2016/2017 following the release of the third Divergent film; Allegiant. It seems now that the few YA films that do slip through the cracks are more realistic and smaller in scale, in comparison to the Harry Potter’s and Twilight’s that popularised much of the YA adaptation genre at its height.
One of the last great hurrahs of the YA genre though was The Hunger Games, a series of 4 films that started in 2012 and ran until 2015, it also propelled Jennifer Lawrence into the limelight as one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood today. Based on the trilogy of novels that share the same name by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games was not only the last great fantastical YA adaptation Hollywood were eager to pump out, but also possibly the one that handled the darkest subject matter of its peers, and in the most head on way.
The opening text of 2012’s The Hunger Games reads as such:
“In penance for their uprising, each District shall offer up a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public ‘Reaping’. These tributes shall be delivered to the custody of The Capitol, and then transferred to a public arena where they will fight to the death, until a lone victor remains.”
Although text is a pretty crappy way to open a film, The Hunger Games has an awful lot of lore to communicate to the viewer in a very short amount of time. Just over 74 years-worth to be exact. Some time ago the continent of Panem rebelled against the established government, and as retribution for this the 13thand final District was destroyed, and The Hunger Games were created in order to keep the remaining 12 District’s in line.
74 years later and Katniss Everdeen sacrifices herself, in place of her sister, to be the chosen tribute for District 12 at that years Hunger Games.
She must then train to survive a fight to the death against 23 other tributes. However, in order to do this, she and the other District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark, decide to try and tip the scales of the games in their favour in hopes of both coming out alive. All whilst this is happening, the two are unaware that their actions are igniting the flames for a new rebellion.
The Hunger Games as a series is one of my favourite YA stories and it’s mostly due to how it treats the world it creates, and the characters that inhabit it, with a huge amount of respect. The film is just under 2 hours 30 minutes and over half of that run time is spent building the world, the characters, and the politics of the games themselves. Whilst on paper it certainly sounds like a Battle Royale knock off, where Battle Royale was quite literally a film about sticking kids in an arena to kill each other, Hunger Games spends only an hour or so on this aspect of the story and so it benefits itself the opportunity to focus on the reason why the games exist in the first place, and what kind of effect they have on the different Districts. Where Districts 1,2, and occasionally 3 view the games as an Olympics of sort, where children train for the opportunity to compete and represent their Districts. Those lower down the chain such as Districts 11 & 12 see this as a way to keep them in line and strip them of hope as their tributes almost always die. Where the wealthier Districts celebrate the games, the poorer ones understandably view them as a death sentence.
We get to see how important it is for the tributes to become celebrities in order to boost their chances of earning gifts in the arena, as well as how important you look, sound, or even stand when there are cameras in sight to publicise everything about you to the citizens of Panem.
The highlight sequences of the film are quite possibly the talk show sections with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). Tucci plays the character of Flickerman so well and with such grace that they are perhaps the most believable sequences in the film. It’s also where the idea that these kids are going to die comes through the most prevalently as he is so keen to remind his audience. He always does it with a smile and a booming laugh as he’s paid to make the games entertaining and appealing, but you can see through Tucci’s fantastic performance that Flickerman is well aware that he is a cog in a machine that leads lambs to the slaughter for the entertainment of thousands.
The game itself is a mixed bag. Whilst the film does an incredible job of showcasing how brutal this event is with kids killing kids on screen whilst also managing to adhere to censorship guidelines as it is a film designed for audiences 12 and over. Some of the deaths hit quite hard, with the opening few minutes of the games bringing the shock factor of seeing a large number of deaths happen in a short space of time; then there are also a number of deaths later on in the game that hit you where it hurts because you’ve started growing attached to the characters. On the other hand, the film is largely shot with the idea of ‘the shakier the camera is the better the action will look’ which many films of the time were doing. It ultimately makes much of the film quite disorientating as it happens far too often, and far too much to be effective.
One of the last great hurrahs of the YA genre though was The Hunger Games, a series of 4 films that started in 2012 and ran until 2015, it also propelled Jennifer Lawrence into the limelight as one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood today. Based on the trilogy of novels that share the same name by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games was not only the last great fantastical YA adaptation Hollywood were eager to pump out, but also possibly the one that handled the darkest subject matter of its peers, and in the most head on way.
The opening text of 2012’s The Hunger Games reads as such:
“In penance for their uprising, each District shall offer up a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public ‘Reaping’. These tributes shall be delivered to the custody of The Capitol, and then transferred to a public arena where they will fight to the death, until a lone victor remains.”
Although text is a pretty crappy way to open a film, The Hunger Games has an awful lot of lore to communicate to the viewer in a very short amount of time. Just over 74 years-worth to be exact. Some time ago the continent of Panem rebelled against the established government, and as retribution for this the 13thand final District was destroyed, and The Hunger Games were created in order to keep the remaining 12 District’s in line.
74 years later and Katniss Everdeen sacrifices herself, in place of her sister, to be the chosen tribute for District 12 at that years Hunger Games.
She must then train to survive a fight to the death against 23 other tributes. However, in order to do this, she and the other District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark, decide to try and tip the scales of the games in their favour in hopes of both coming out alive. All whilst this is happening, the two are unaware that their actions are igniting the flames for a new rebellion.
The Hunger Games as a series is one of my favourite YA stories and it’s mostly due to how it treats the world it creates, and the characters that inhabit it, with a huge amount of respect. The film is just under 2 hours 30 minutes and over half of that run time is spent building the world, the characters, and the politics of the games themselves. Whilst on paper it certainly sounds like a Battle Royale knock off, where Battle Royale was quite literally a film about sticking kids in an arena to kill each other, Hunger Games spends only an hour or so on this aspect of the story and so it benefits itself the opportunity to focus on the reason why the games exist in the first place, and what kind of effect they have on the different Districts. Where Districts 1,2, and occasionally 3 view the games as an Olympics of sort, where children train for the opportunity to compete and represent their Districts. Those lower down the chain such as Districts 11 & 12 see this as a way to keep them in line and strip them of hope as their tributes almost always die. Where the wealthier Districts celebrate the games, the poorer ones understandably view them as a death sentence.
We get to see how important it is for the tributes to become celebrities in order to boost their chances of earning gifts in the arena, as well as how important you look, sound, or even stand when there are cameras in sight to publicise everything about you to the citizens of Panem.
The highlight sequences of the film are quite possibly the talk show sections with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). Tucci plays the character of Flickerman so well and with such grace that they are perhaps the most believable sequences in the film. It’s also where the idea that these kids are going to die comes through the most prevalently as he is so keen to remind his audience. He always does it with a smile and a booming laugh as he’s paid to make the games entertaining and appealing, but you can see through Tucci’s fantastic performance that Flickerman is well aware that he is a cog in a machine that leads lambs to the slaughter for the entertainment of thousands.
The game itself is a mixed bag. Whilst the film does an incredible job of showcasing how brutal this event is with kids killing kids on screen whilst also managing to adhere to censorship guidelines as it is a film designed for audiences 12 and over. Some of the deaths hit quite hard, with the opening few minutes of the games bringing the shock factor of seeing a large number of deaths happen in a short space of time; then there are also a number of deaths later on in the game that hit you where it hurts because you’ve started growing attached to the characters. On the other hand, the film is largely shot with the idea of ‘the shakier the camera is the better the action will look’ which many films of the time were doing. It ultimately makes much of the film quite disorientating as it happens far too often, and far too much to be effective.
I’ve already touched on Stanley Tucci’s fantastic performance, in fact he may deliver the best performance of the whole film. The leading lady in the form of Jennifer Lawrence is somewhat underwhelming considering what she was capable of later down the line, even within the Hunger Games series, so part of me questions whether the script wasn’t particularly fantastically written for her, or whether she wasn’t being directed well enough; as she can come across as a little wooden at times. It may also be the way her character develops as she loosens up over time, but definitely within the first 45 minutes or so she seems quite stiff.
Josh Hutcherson as Peeta actually gets worse over the course of the film. He’s at his best in dialogue heavy scenes and as they dissipate towards the back half of the film he gets relegated to running around and shouting which he doesn’t do all that convincingly.
Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy is another standout performance of the film. He doesn’t get an awful lot to do once Katniss & Peeta enter the arena, but as their mentor he really stands out from the crowd with his cold, cruel, yet calculated view of the situation.
It also can’t be understated how good Elizabeth Banks is as Effie Trinket. She brings some much-needed levity to the proceedings. Much like Tucci’s character, Bank’s Effie is clearly putting on a performance to make the games seem like something grand rather than what they clearly are, but unlike Tucci’s character she hasn’t quite gone through the process of realising just how cruel the games truly are yet. She always gets stuck with District 12 so none of the kids ever understand her customs as a citizen of The Capitol, as such she’s completely tone deaf to how insensitive she is to them, and never forms a bond with them before they die. To her these kids just come and go in her life and she never gets attached to them meaning she has yet to really come to terms with the role she plays in slaughtering these children. She’s not evil, far from it actually as we see later in the series, but at the start of it all she is just so completely oblivious to anything other than the glitz and glamour of the games that she fails to see how people could view them as a bad thing even if they are going to die in the process.
Overall, The Hunger Games is a great story that is let down by some poor filmmaking techniques. It is worth watching the film for the commentary on capitalist social structures, dictatorships, rebellions, and of course social media & reality TV shows. The performances are far above what you would usually find in YA adaptations of the time, and the films unflinching commitment to brutality in both its combat sequences and the dialogue that permeates most of the film is a testament to how much the filmmakers wanted the film to stand out amongst the crowd. They certainly achieved it, and it’s a great start to an awesome series.
Josh Hutcherson as Peeta actually gets worse over the course of the film. He’s at his best in dialogue heavy scenes and as they dissipate towards the back half of the film he gets relegated to running around and shouting which he doesn’t do all that convincingly.
Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy is another standout performance of the film. He doesn’t get an awful lot to do once Katniss & Peeta enter the arena, but as their mentor he really stands out from the crowd with his cold, cruel, yet calculated view of the situation.
It also can’t be understated how good Elizabeth Banks is as Effie Trinket. She brings some much-needed levity to the proceedings. Much like Tucci’s character, Bank’s Effie is clearly putting on a performance to make the games seem like something grand rather than what they clearly are, but unlike Tucci’s character she hasn’t quite gone through the process of realising just how cruel the games truly are yet. She always gets stuck with District 12 so none of the kids ever understand her customs as a citizen of The Capitol, as such she’s completely tone deaf to how insensitive she is to them, and never forms a bond with them before they die. To her these kids just come and go in her life and she never gets attached to them meaning she has yet to really come to terms with the role she plays in slaughtering these children. She’s not evil, far from it actually as we see later in the series, but at the start of it all she is just so completely oblivious to anything other than the glitz and glamour of the games that she fails to see how people could view them as a bad thing even if they are going to die in the process.
Overall, The Hunger Games is a great story that is let down by some poor filmmaking techniques. It is worth watching the film for the commentary on capitalist social structures, dictatorships, rebellions, and of course social media & reality TV shows. The performances are far above what you would usually find in YA adaptations of the time, and the films unflinching commitment to brutality in both its combat sequences and the dialogue that permeates most of the film is a testament to how much the filmmakers wanted the film to stand out amongst the crowd. They certainly achieved it, and it’s a great start to an awesome series.