In a dystopian future, in response to a catastrophic rebellion, the capital city hosts the title event drawing two names, a boy and girl, from each of their twelve, economically disparate districts to compete in a last person standing battle to the death. In the impoverished coal mining district, when her sister's name is drawn, skilled archer Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place and is set on the unenviable course to participate in the deadly contest. "Hunger Games", an adaptation of the the highly successful Suzanne Collins novel and hopeful Harry Potter replacement, arrives in theaters (with great immediate success already) as a juvenile and simplistic film. The screenplay is unintelligent, underdeveloped and clearly geared towards teens. The impressive cast which includes Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, an unrecognizable Elizabeth Banks, and Stanley Tucci (and I'm chalking this up to poor material) creates characters who are not in the least bit interesting (I enjoyed Lenny Kravitz's character, but he was barely in the film). Jennifer Lawrence is strong in the lead, but likewise not given anywhere to go or much to work with. The central romance is pathetic and should have been excluded and we aren't introduced to any of the competitors. By the time we finally arrive at The Games following a tedious training sequence, we are given the shaky cam treatment yielding disorienting results. This may have been the point, but it still does not make the film engaging. I was also strongly opposed to the "Truman Show" effect employed, whereby game runners control the biosphere to speed things along. All this effect did was take away from the already established ground rules and offer a reminder of a similarly themed and infinitely better film. "Hunger Games" has generated great buzz and sold a lot of tickets thus far, so I was all the more disappointed to find out not just how poorly realized and simple it is, but also just how little it has to say about the state of our culture.
