Escape to the Movies: The Hunger Games Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NEXT | |
On behalf of everyone sick of the way Entertainment Weekly has been shoving this movie down our collective throats almost every week for a year... thank you. And to think I was almost on the verge of breaking down and going to see this movie. Oh, well.. I suppose I can do without Catnip Mr.Clean. | |
Considering that a straight up Battle Royale movie would never fly in the west, this is probably the best we're going to get. | |
So Hollywood turned a mediocre book into a mediocre movie? Colour me surprised. | |
Glad I watched this because I feel that's about all I need to see of this film. I was actually starting to get bored of the clips shown in the background. Looks like one I need to avoid. | |
Bob you had me at "Catfish Jellybean".... I do really not like most names they make up "catfish jellybean" is one of the worse offenders... Never heard about Hunger games until like 2 months ago. And people are outraged about this movie around here because it's even 11 here that means 8y could see it with parents (15 is the next age rating here). That sounds hilarious in theory but sitting in the cinema with the targeted audience does not seem like a fun day...
If I remember it right BR went really well here due to the controversy of it... And small kids that wanted to brag about seeing it probably fueled the popularity... | |
The PG-13 rating killed it for me | |
I read the series a year ago, loved them. I never believed the movie would come close to being as good as the first book, but I'll go see it anyways. | |
I have actually seen Battle Royale called, by a respected publication, "The Japanese Hunger Games." Please join me in rage. | |
please elaborate on what the f*** this has to do with The Hunger Games and a review of it's movie adaptation... OT; i'm gonna go see this with my gf this weekend. I kinda wanna read the books first but what the hoo-ha. i kinda felt the movie was gonna be bland, it's hard to put gladiatorial deathsport into a PG-13 rating, so my hopes were never that high. Although I will say there is a silver lining here and that's the possibility that this movie will make a ton of money off the fans and ride a larger budget into the sequel, and it might make for a better movie. After all i'm told the second book is better before the story falls apart in the third. | |
If its ok to be a movie that's derivative but makes up for it in other departments....why did you use Avatar as an example over something like...Last Samurai? You said a movie that excels, not pisses me off to the point i want to cause physical pain. But i digress. Great review. And really, i never even heard of hunger games till i saw the trailer and....i thought sci-fi...er excuse me sy-fy got rights to an old short story and somehow got a theatrical release. it looked like shit, it looked boring as shit, it couldn't make me give a shit, ill assume it shit. And really, can we stop doing this cliche of the working class hero? | |
"Aimed at teenage girls." In all seriousness though, I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't comment on it. However, the books were really good... albeit Mockingjay being less so due to the focus on the romance for the first two thirds of the novel. At least in the first two I could ignore it to an extent, I feel like it's more in your face in the third. And the whole "tragedy to the point of comedy" thing that someone else mentioned is in there too. It's pretty ridiculous how many people die during one of the scenes, really. Still though, the books were a fun read. Along the lines of Harry Potter really. Not every book has to offer a deep, meaningful experience; sometimes an interesting story alone is good enough. | |
Just because something is similar doesn't mean it's the same. I just got back from seeing it, and I thought it was pretty damn great. Then again, I have read the books. Also, despite the PG-13, it actually is pretty violent. | |
Here lies the MovieBob. One day he told the fan-people the truth about a movie. His memory lives on. OT: I am sad too hear that the movie did not live up to the books. I honestly think that the books are going to be the next great 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. At least the books are getting some more attention. | |
I knew it was gonna suck. The very idea sucks. The books suck. What in god's name are kids reading these days? When I was a teenager I was reading classic Russian literature.
For now. It will not last. They may be interesting to read, but there is nothing of real value in those books. | |
And My Little Pony is aimed at pre-teen girls. | |
Though Battle Royale has been released this week on DVD in the US. That's one weird coincidence | |
I don't disagree. I wasn't 100% into the books, though a cool concept in my opinion, as I hadn't read anything like it before. Yes it may have been done before. I wouldn't have changed the names, and some things do work better in books than movies. YOu can visualize something better than it would look on the screen. Sadly, I think it was an R rated booked from a violence perspective, but again, in a book that's different than seeing it. I will check it in the coming weeks and see, how it does translate. | |
But that's my point, he seemed to want to change the characters.. not sure how changing their names would help. And to your point, they cut the violence down to bring in a bigger audience.. Mistake.. but then again.. I am sicko I guess.. haha.. | |
I've only ever been passingly familiar with the Hunger games. I knew what the premise was, but it was never something that got my attention too much. What I didn't know is that the books are targeted at teenage girls. That changes things a bit. It leads me to: a.) still not be interested in reading them, and b.) glad they exist. As Bob pointed out, it's a nice contrast to Twilight. I even kind of like the whole fake relationship thing (spoiler alert: Catfish isn't really into the guy, but he's into her). There's a significant need for girls to have the same sort self-actualized, strong role models that guys do. Speaking of which, anyone who hasn't read Mistborn, should do so. The character of Vin is one of the best characters in books and one of the best Female characters in any medium. | |
hmm, I'm glad that I watched this, it's better to go in to it with a bit of lowered expectations, the books were an addicting read, not great, but hard to put down. If the scene with Rue doesn't move me in any way I'll be disappointed, other than that I'll just enjoy the show. | |
See, this is why subtlety (and references that require less than a minute of researching) doesn't exist in low culture. | |
Whatever you ever say about anything ever. Do not compare The Hunger Games to George Orwell's work. It's like calling Mayer the Stoker of this generation. And on the topic of movie, yeah I think I'll be better off with watching the Blue-Ray release of Battle Royale. | |
Yeah ... I guess they cut for time or something so the whole movie took a grand total of like four days to play out ... in the book he was wandering around and training for years before he got anywhere, and there wasn't any dragon leaping either, the movie completely changed the ending. In the book (if I remember correctly) he was just sort of cornered and about to die, but then the dragon knocked down a giant chandelier which fell on the bad guy and killed him. I guess that wasn't "epic" enough to put in the movie or something ... I really like Eragon. I don't really care that it's basically A New Hope set in Middle Earth, it's just a good book. The sequels are excellent too, imo. But that movie ... bleah >.< | |
Oh God... what... please... say it ain't so... how... how can people be so stupid? | |
Wow. I think this is the most at odds yet I've been with MovieBob. It's not even that I'm a raging fanboy either. Well at least before seeing the movie. Like MovieBob, (obviously since he's picking out plot stuff on it's own merit rather than relating it to the books; don't blame him, I haven't found a copy yet) I had no prior exposure. I was cautiously optimistic and now I'm blown out of the water onto a mountaintop or at least a decent sized hill. I concede most of MovieBob's digs at the plot/exposition. There's not a terrible lot original if you go back 30+ years. However, that's something to talk to the author about. I'm not hearing OMFG DEY RUINED THA STORY!!111!!!1! from book fans so it seems to have done reasonably well for what it was given. It's not the film's fault, except that it apparently didn't make it interesting or exciting enough for some. Yes, the dog things were weird. While I agree that the teen villains were 1-dimensional, you do realize that were "teens?" High school politics don't exactly take a bachelor's degree. This is just a violent manifestation of those same relationships. That being said I liked my high school better than the characters'. Less chance of being shanked or eaten by dogs. It's worthy of note that this is but Act 1 of the series. The cannon fodder were it seems solely for the purpose of fleshing out Katniss as a character. While this may not be a terribly conclusive, satisfying policy this is exactly the sort of thing pulled by George Lucas in Star Wars/A New Hope. Both are stand-alone's (though Star Wars was a bit more wrapped up, but only just) that serve to begin a greater story. While the actors were not whom would have picked had I been given the roles to fill but I am pleasantly surprised by them all. Whether heroine, mentor, shady politician or pathetic underling all the actors that had major screen time showed good chemistry and to know their character. I particularly loved how Jennifer Lawrence shined as an actress at the scene preparing anticipating the begin of the games. She was shivering. Believably. You could tell what she was feeling but not to point of her going into convulsions. I applaud your bravery in taking this side in the debate but there is a lot more to be said. | |
The tropes of this movie are as old as Theseus and the Minotaur, complete with romantic subplots. When I first heard of this movie I was reminded of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Suffice to say I never found much interest in it. I could tell right away this wasn't the next "Harry Potter" Hollywood was hoping to suckle from, but teenagers with disposable incomes latching themselves onto terrible books to fuel their juvenile projectionist fantasies decide these things, not me. I mean you said it yourself, Bob. The idiocy of the whole premise is self-evident. But I guess if "stupid evil" wasn't the unspoken 10 alignment option the heroes wouldn't have a lot of bad guys to fight, would they? A lot of these stories seem to imply that good is dumb and/or lazy and the only reason heroes win is because evil decides to drop a few IQ points just to give the good guys a sporting chance. Seriously, this whole bleak future seems to rely on every oppressed human being in this dystopia just deciding to bend over and take it. A fat chunk of Americans start waving guns around if you mention "health care" in their presence, and we're supposed to believe that at some point in the next forty or so years Cirque du Hitler. Gaaah. So sick of this weak setup shit. At least Running Man had a little cheese, what with the President having an agent and everything. | |
The shakycam really annoyed me. It was a bother during the fight scenes, but in that setting I got that it was their way of not showing the blood and murder. I wasn't liking it, but I got it. There weren't exactly long descriptions of gore or something in the book either. But when there is shakycam in the intro? Was it supposed to insinuate that something about the place was off? The desaturation sort of did that job already. I just got a mild headache from it. The movie is really close to the book(that game master character isn't in the book, though), but it's sort of lacking without Katniss' perspective(thoughts), which I can't think of a way to show well in a movie, and all of the slow parts, which are cut short. If Bob got tired of the forest in the movie, the book would have put him to sleep, probably. They really glossed over the mad scientist parts of fiction, like the spaceships and the gene modifications. I preferred the dogs in the movie because they aren't as silly as the mutated wolves made to look like the murdered participants/murdered participants mutated into wolves, but I suppose the latter would be more fun. | |
... He gets the reference, I think we all got that, and frankly it wasn't subtle in the least. But if you aren't a troll, I guess I'm confused too ... what does The Avengers have to do with this review, this book, or this movie, at all? Unless he mentioned The Avengers in the video, but I don't remember that happening ... | |
Not that it makes them right, but all the plot holes Movie Bob points out are VERY true to the book. The bad guys are all shallow and foppish. The hunger games "stadium" is never explained well, and the bad guys DO make disasters happen out of thin air. The 1st book doesn't give any visuals of the rebellion happening in the districts. | |
I am so glad that this movie ended up theway it did because it renforces my theory that when somthing gets as popular as this before it's release it will be a dissapointment. Also I'm glad that I'll be able to gloat to my friends who went to see this movie and thought it was going to be the second coming about me judging a movie correctly before it was even released. | |
I see what you did there, and I approve. | |
To be fair though we're dealing with a book with a non-omniscient narrator. They don't explain the Capitol society because our pov character doesn't understand Capitol society. The tech isn't explained because it's a mystery to the character as well. I'd personally much rather have sci-fi that doesn't explain something than that does in some absurd way (like a solar system with dozens of habitable worlds in Firefly or the Ansible in dozens of sci-fi stories. | |
If I hear one more review making immediate comparisons to Battle Royale/less popular scifi movies, I might shank a fool. Believe it or not, The Hunger Games is not really popular because of a stunningly innovative premise it's popular because of the characters, theme, tone, and the all encompassing cliffhanger ending that keeps the books selling. If you look at the accusations of ripping off other movies, you'll find that most are just standard dystopian scifi fare in the first place. I can't attest to the movie criticisms yet because I'm planning on watching it over the weekend, but a little side note: this movie was made with a budget that was $1 million less than Jack & Jill. Compare the 2 and see where some money is better spent than other money. PS Even with the CGI that James Cameron must have enslaved his employees to get done, Avatar still kind of sucks imho. | |
Goddammit, I was really hoping for this to be good. I would like to hope that this will be a time where I actually think moviebob is wrong about a film, but that generally doesn't happen that often. Ah well, I'm still a kind of fan of the books so I'm sure I'll like it regardless(and because Jeniffer Lawrence obviously...). | |
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ha Catfish Jellybean that made me laugh.