Saw the Hungry Hungry Hippos Games movie.
I liked it, with reservations.
PROS:
- No exposition. A big fan of how they never sit you down and explain exactly what is going on in this world. I never read the book so it was great to discover new things about the world as the movie went on. Hell, they never even say the name of Elizabeth Banks' character.
- Jennifer Lawrence. Loved her in Winter's Bone, loved her in this. She's a bonafide leading woman. Also the character she played is an actual character and does stuff and is active as opposed to the total passive blank slate that Bella is in the Twilight series. Makes it so everything about the story isn't inherently broken.
- Kid on kid brutal violence is always a plus.
CONS:
- Some of the WORST shaky cam I've ever seen. When done well, it can be great like in the Bourne sequels and The Hurt Locker, but this was just sloppy and terrible.
- I couldn't tell if the love story stuff was supposed to be genuine or if it was just an attempt for the characters to be more crowd pleasing. I was told afterwards by people who read the book it was supposed to be the latter and thinking back on it it certainly makes more sense that way, but in the theater I was baffled.
- I knew, I think, immediately when Rue started following Katniss around that she was gonna die. I mean of course she had to, that's the point of the Hunger Games. The predictability didn't bother me as much as the execution did. We barely spend any time with Rue before she takes a spear to the gut and I didn't really care on any level other than, "It's sad because she was a young girl." Could have done more with her before offing her and making that moment really painful. Instead she just feels like a plot device.
So yeah. Not great, but a solid "good." Considering how I feel about most cultural phenomenons, I look at this one as a huge win.