Much to my chagrin, I went to see The Hunger Games when it came out in March. It was playing a few blocks from where I live and I was really bored. I hadn’t read the book, but I’d heard enough negative comments about this cultural phenomenon to expect the worst. I took a notebook to keep track of my thoughts. I meant to write a review based on these notes, but I just couldn’t waste my time. The whole thing was just too laughable. So here are my random, mostly chronological thoughts, MST3K quip style for your perusal and, hopefully, your enjoyment.
You can’t launch a rock with a bow string. Impossible.
First act is TOO SHAKEY.
How did all these radically different styles of clothing develop?
Why is this contest a good idea?
Why would the kids be afraid of something that’s so accepted in their culture?
This feels like a 70s exploitation film. Tarantino would have had so much fun with this concept.
The kids are so moody and whiney. They’d be more straight-faced around such powerful authority figures.
In the words of my friend Jeremy concerning the fashions on display in this film: “Oompa Loompas took over the world.”
How does violence tame a society?
The capital design is silly. It looks like a bad video game.
With all the sci-fi technology, why on earth would they force their slave districts to mine coal the old fashioned way? This world is silly. Dumbest. Government. Ever.
Why do these kids only get four days of training? Seems like more days would make for a more entertaining “game.”
This is a bleak social commentary that you’d expect from a short story in the 1960’s, not from a modern kids book.
If this world is obsessed with violence, why would the kids be upset about fighting to the death?
Apparently hope is dangerous?
Why killing? Why not a game of tag or a race?
In this story, individuality is apparently the greatest good.
I really like the trainers. They’re broken and sad and haunted and I feel sorry for them. One good thing about this movie.
What’s the prevalent religion? They can’t all be humanists, especially in this culture.
I want to write an article called “The Hunger Games and Abortion”
This film should have been an R-rated gore fest. Kids getting chopped up would have been so much more powerful.
I went to college in Northern South Carolina, and those woods look very familiar.
It’s like Lord of The Flies only unrealistic and stupid.
Why doesn’t anyone in the heroine’s district have southern accents?
Jays DO NOT DO THAT
This film needs a video game!!! Kid Killer 2000!!!
If I was in this game I’d just throw up my arms and choose to be a martyr. “I’m not participating people! You better stab me now.”
A lot of amazing coincidences save our heroes from EVER HAVING TO CHOOSE TO USE VIOLENT ACTION. Berries, dogs, mutant bees. Stupid cop-outs.
At the end of the day, this film is no different than the Saw film franchise. Its violence is supposed to be entertaining. Its really not at all like Goldings’s Lord of the Flies, because it wants the killing to feel thrilling rather than disturbing. Only our culture could imagine and celebrate this story. It celebrates what it condemns, just like Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. Are we entertained? Yes we are.
I didn’t hate Hunger Games as a film. It was well shot and acted, and it was at times very engaging. I just loath the exploitative use of violence in the story and the fact that it’s being aggressively marketed to young kids. It’s Lord of The Flies lite, with all of the luridness and none of the convictions. A whole lot of nothing really.