Full disclosure: We saw this movie more than a couple of weeks ago but only]now found the time to submit for your approval a "Knee-jerk review."
1. We found the book sort of "meh." And so guess what? The movie's also sort of "meh."
2. Panem is certainly an interesting dystopian world, but the more you think about it, the more illogical and ridiculous it all is. Don't look too closely, in other words.
3. Rachel Zegler completely steals the movie as the charismatic tribute Lucy Gray. Probably not as impressive a feat as you might imagine given the wet blanket performance by Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, the film's supposed protagonist.
4. Were audiences really curious to know how and why the evil President Snow from the original Hunger Games trilogy (tetralogy since the last book spanned two movies - remember when that was a thing?) turned bad? We get that the "how'd it happen?" exercise likely excited author Suzanne Collins, but the whole thing works very hard to answer a question no one was asking.
5. There are some interesting political and classism issues bubbling under the surface, like Snow's desperate attempt to hide his poverty from his snobby affluent friends. His determination to rise above his station in life is probably the movie's most relatable element.
6. The story behind the actual invention of the Hunger Games - which we get here only through dialogue about things that happened long before the events of the movie - might have been more compelling.
7. No doubt Viola Davis is having a great time. She's in full diva mode here, chewing up the scenery and sporting that actor's prop delight - crazy contact lenses.
8. The snakes-that-recognize-scents thing is pretty cool.
9. The real kicker is that after you sit through a whole lot of plot and action and conflict and characters to see this movie's edition of the Hunger Games play out, which was more or less satisfying, the story shifts gears into a new setting and keeps going for another 45 minutes. Most troubling, the big heel turn for Snow is crammed into the last 20 minutes. That dark chain of events felt so rushed and unmotivated, in fact, that we had to conduct a family debriefing on the car ride home to work out just what exactly happened. It took all of us to piece it together.
10. Of course the movie has to find a way to namecheck Katniss Everdeen, a character who won't be born for another 30 years or so. Eye roll.
11. It's well done, goes through the paces, yadda yadda. It's fine.
From the archives, here's our original review of The Hunger Games from 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment