Thanks to France's Wednesday new release tradition, I had the good fortune to see The Hunger Games this afternoon. As I have said previously, I enjoyed the books but don't regard them with the same obsessive zeal I have for other series, though they are miles better than Twilight (admittedly a low bar). Most of my problems with them originated with Suzanne Collins's style; she comes from a television writing background, which is eminently clear when you read her prose. Katniss is also not the most likable of protagonists. I have grown to like her, but she takes a lot of getting used to, and since she's the first-person narrator, it's hard to be inside her head especially when you haven't warmed up to her properly. All of these issues are solved by the film. In fact, I submit to you that The Hunger Games works better as a movie than it does as a book. The larger world we only got a sense of in the books is featured prominently on screen, and the violence is much more shocking and visceral in a visual medium. I did miss a few lines or details here and there, but the quality of the final product more than makes up for it. This is a good film and a great adaptation.
Now beware, because HERE BE SPOILERS!
Jennifer Lawrence is Katniss. Her drive to survive, easily the defining aspect of Katniss's character, is spot-on; she's tough, gutsy, resourceful, and she doesn't miss a beat. I particularly liked that Lawrence was able to convey Katniss's loathing of owing people in a subtly convincing way. But Katniss's softer traits come across well, too. Her love for Prim and her affection for Rue are obvious and touching, and while the true complexity of her feelings for Peeta might have been handled better, perhaps, it's apparent that she cares for him, at least in some way.
All of the acting is good; there is not a single performance I outright dislike, though the fact that Jennifer Lawrence's skills are far better than Liam Hemsworth's is noticeable in the Katniss and Gale scenes. Willow Shields doesn't have much to do as Prim; the only qualms I have about her is that she spends rather a lot of time screaming "No!" Amandla Stenberg is appropriately adorable as Rue, which makes her death even more heartbreaking than it was in the book. In fact, the scene that follows Rue's murder is arguably the movie's best. Katniss cries, and not just the dainty tears you often see in movies, but real, ugly crying; there is an especially beautiful and sad shot just after she has covered Rue's body in flowers, where she sobs and tells Rue how sorry she is. Once she gives her salute of respect, the most moving part of the sequence happens; District 11 returns the gesture, and starts to riot against the peacekeepers. Rue's death was sad, but the riot was powerful, and it was the one thing in the movie that made me cry.
Josh Hutcherson made a good Peeta, naysayers be damned; I just wish they'd given him more to do. All of the cave scenes between Peeta and Katniss are toned down. Book-readers might be surprised to learn that there is only one kiss in the film, a change I'm not sure I agree with. He still gets to talk about staying true to himself, though, and in essentials his performance gets everything right.
Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Elizabeth Banks as Effie, and Lenny Kravitz as Cinna all gave solid and faithful performances. Given a larger role here than in the books are Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane, Donald Sutherland as President Snow, and Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman. They acquit themselves well, and they represent a Panem that was mostly absent from the source material. We actually see the Gamemakers running the show, Haymitch schmoozing with sponsors, Caesar providing commentary for the audience at home (and the non-book readers), and just how much of a threat Katniss has become to Snow. This is world-building that the books were missing, world-building that is necessary and welcome in the film, and it works very well indeed.
Overall the music was decent. I enjoyed the Appalachian influences in scenes focusing on Katniss and her district, and the score was quite effective in places like the aforementioned sequence following Rue's death. Costumes were mostly good; the Capitol fashion was just as outlandish as the book called for, and it adequately captured the differences between life in 12 versus life in the Capitol. The one technical aspect that took some getting used to was the shaky cam, featured prominently throughout the film. The pacing was also a bit off; I thought things were slow in the beginning and too fast in the end. Everything between the arrival in the Capitol and finding Peeta in the stream was fine, pacing-wise, but the absence of some of the cave scenes was noticeable, and the climax felt rushed.
Other than those minor quibbles, this is really an excellent adaptation. It got rid of what didn't work, added world-building that should have been there in the first place, and provided some excellent acting from the leads. It's not perfect, but it does what it has to, and for the most part, it does it quite well. A-.
