A HUNGER GAMES Virgin Goes to See the Movie

I sat down to view The Hunger Games without having read a single word of the trilogy by author Suzanne Collins.

I was well aware of the popularity of the books, and the production studio Lionsgate has done a bang-up publicity and marketing job over the past year or so building hype and anticipation for this “event.”

I think everybody on the planet knew this movie was coming, that it would be big, and that it would kick off a projected series of four adaptations of the three bestselling books (Catching Fire, the second book of the series, is scheduled for release at Thanksgiving, 2013; the third book, Mockingjay, will be given the Deathly Hallows/Breaking Dawn treatment and divided into two films).

Let’s not worry about the spanning arc of the series just yet, because any individual film adaptation—even the single introductory episode of a larger story—ought stand on its own merits and exist as a self-contained movie.

To this end, The Hunger Games is a frustrating boggle that relies too heavily on the assumption that viewers have already acquainted themselves with its characters and have read the entire trilogy.

Uninitiated audiences are more apt to shrug their shoulders over the plot’s nebulous politics, scratch their heads over the bizarre fashion statements of the future, and simply take at face value the social hierarchy of its post-apocalyptic society.

The broad strokes are simple enough.

The story is set in an undetermined post-war future, with a dozen Districts surrounding a central ruling Capitol.

Every year, to commemorate the great revolt that culminated in the USA’s becoming a police state called “Panem,” the residents of each District offer up two teenagers—picked by lottery—as tribute to compete in The Hunger Games, a televised hunt-to-the-death that all citizens are required to watch.

Our heroes from the poor mining zone District 12 are Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).

Even though there can be only one winner, the tributes’ mentor and former District 12 winner (Woody Harrelson, a playboy drunkard) encourages the two to team up and play lovers for the benefit of the audience—and to earn valuable corporate sponsorship.

The whole lovers thing doesn’t sit too well with Katniss’ boyfriend from back home, Gale (Liam Hemsworth, hardly utilized in this film).

Disregarding the unsettling element of kids murdering kids for entertainment and glory, The Hunger Games is essentially an adolescent take on The Most Dangerous Game, which has itself been used as a sturdy springboard for mindless macho action (Hard Target, Surviving the Game) and futuristic social satire (Death Race 2000, Rollerball, The Running Man).

Joel McCrea and Fay Wray, the original Peeta and Katniss in The Most Dangerous Game

Add a dash of The Truman Show with its all-seeing eye-in-the-sky broadcasting live to a captivated global audience, play up the teenaged love triangle à la Twilight, toss in some vicious Avatar-style creatures and—voila!—you’ve got The Hunger Games.

Considering its target audience, The Hunger Games is rather gritty and intense.

Director Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) keeps things somber, and the hand-held camerawork is particularly effective at creating an atmosphere of dread and danger out in the field. However, the film is unnecessarily long, takes forever to get going, and its sanitized portrayal of the terrible violence is a compromise that just doesn’t work.

Any bloodier and the film might be perceived as a glorification of violence instead of a mere indictment of it, but held to the constraints of a PG-13 rating, the film simply doesn’t shock or disturb as deeply as it intends to.

Unlike, say, Battle Royale

The Hunger Games does eventually reach a logical conclusion, but one that’s somewhat unsatisfying and that leaves too many dangling plot elements to be dealt with in the next movies. It may not stand on its own, but it’s substantial enough to whet my appetite for the inevitable Part 2.

Which is exactly what the suits over at Lionsgate want to hear.

BOX OFFICE GOLD!!!