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The biggest non summer film in the history of mankind paints a very dark picture, but is it painted well?

(TRANSCRIPT)……

Some weekends movies come out, other weekends movie events happen.  That is this weekend as HG debuts. A big time movie event. Seems like everybody is talking about it and everbody is seeing it and I’m sure the box office numbers will back that up.

Hunger Games is based on a young adult novel, like so many of the big hits of the last several years have been.

In this one, it tells the story, a very disturbing premise of a world in the future where bc of a war that has happened certain colonies have to “elect”, “pull out of a hat” for a “lottery”, kids. Yes children, anywhere from younger ages up to teenagers, to go and compete in a last man standing, winner take all, battle to the death. Yes, at its core, HG is about children killing other children. That’s the premise of this movie. A very deeply disturbing premise.

Does that mean this movie is a bad move? No.  In fact, having went into Hunger Games kinda expecting it to be another Twilight I am actually really surprised at how good of a movie they ended up making.  This is a really well done film. The acting in this movie is really top notch considering the amount of kids that are in it, and the unknowns that are in it. So that plays very well.  It is structured well. You always feel that you understand what is going on.   The action is done very well. All of that adds to a movie that is really done well.

In fact, there are messages in this movie that are also very good.  There’s messages about how love is more powerful than war, about what true self-sacrifice looks like, and what friendship looks like and what to do in the midst of an awful situation. There are solid messages in that.

The problem is; if you can’t get past the disturbing premise you’ll be in for a long ride.  I think that’s probably the key to whether or not you’ll like this movie. If the premise disturbs you to the point where you won’t be able to handle it, don’t go. Maybe checking out the books and kind of figuring out from the books is a way to go on that, to know if it’s something you can stand.
My understanding is that the movie also faithfully follows the books pretty well, although I’ve never read them.  So I wouldn’t technically know that for sure.

I can say on the down side with this movie, I did feel that there were parts of this movie that suffered from “book to movie” syndrome.   What I mean when I say that is, it felt a little “compact”, a little “crushed”.  You can tell there’s so much of this world in this story that has to be left out for time purposes.  I understand that as a movie goer but as somebody who’s never read the books, I felt there were missing pieces in moments.  I understood what was going on but kinda felt the loss of that depth for these characters.

Overall the Hunger Games is a really well made movie, and an enjoyable movie experience *if* you can get past the fact that its foundated on children killing other children.