Children's Death Orgy --- AKA The Hunger Games

Most of you know I'm a fan of Utopian and Distopian novels. I read the Hunger Games in about three days and loved it. However, I was disturbed by the level of violence in a "young adult" book and pronounced "They'll never be able to make that into a movie."

On my Honor... Too bad in this world she would have to sell  cookies for validation.

First off, I'd like to say that I did not have my Nostra-Fletch-a-Damus hat on when I made that prediction. 

Secondly, never underestimate Hollywood when there is a buck to be made. Consider for a moment if this movie could have pulled a PG-13 rating in the 80s in the wake of Arnold's The Running Man. Sure that movie had a ton of profanity, but take that away and its effectively the same plot/violence. 

I'm not hating though. It was nice to revisit the story without Bella constantly whining in my head. The special effects were well done and the girl playing Katniss was spot on with how I imagined her. I was expecting a more burly Peeta but whatever. And the boy named Gale was fortunately minimized so the Twilight factor was almost nil. Ultimately, my hat goes off to Lenny Kravits who was great as Cinnna and really made the emotion of the book come alive. Knowing his ultimate fate makes you appreciate what he does in the first two books a little more and to see it on the big screen was great.  

Like the Harry Potter films, I think the one thing movies struggle to convey is just how sad, bleak and alone the protagonist feels. Perhaps I'm too much of a happy-go-lucky viewer, but you just don't get the sense of how horrible life is for these people in the movie compared to the book.         

Finally, I'm sad I didn't think of a smack down between the Hunger Games and The Running Man sooner, but now I don't have to write it because you can check it out here. http://www.moviesmackdown.com/2012/03/hunger-games-vs-running-man.html

 

Of course as a child of the 80s and just on sheer principle, I disagree with the reviewer and say The Running man was the superior film. The HGs has too much of a Twilight connection to topple Arnold as the greatest distopian death match of all times.