Candy and a Movie: Movie # 39 The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games (2012)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/

I'll start by saying that I haven't read the books. Until last night I thought there was just one book but I have now been educated. Along with not reading the books, I tried to stay away from all of the trailers because I wanted to go into the movie knowing nothing. Not sure why now.

I don't go to the movies a ton and when I do it's usually for a screening (see movie #17 21 Jump Street)so I miss out on trailers. Because of that I got excited and took notes on all six of them. Movies don't need six trailers because it takes forever but what can you do.

First was for The Amazing Spiderman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/ . Spiderman was always my favorite superhero although the three movies that came out a few years ago weren't all that spectacular. I mean Tobey Maguire, really? I will always be excited for a Spiderman flick and I'm cool with the new Peter Parker. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy instead of Mary Jane is different and better looking. Don't know about Denis Leary as Captain Stacy. Trailer looks pretty rough but I'll still end up seeing it.

Next was Snow White and the Huntsman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735898/ . It's one of two Snow White movies coming out this year. The first is Mirror Mirror and it's already out. Don't know anything about it. This one looks like a different take on the story. Snow White is the Twilight chick and she is more of a warrior. I'm skeptical about the whole idea of Snow White. Lets think about how that would look today. The fairest one of all is the ruler? Not 100% sure if fair means palest or most beautiful. Who would be in charge? Carrot top? Kelly Osbourne? Not good for us if it's pale. How about if it's being pretty that gets you in charge. Alba or Johannson? We'd be doomed. Kristin Stewart is probably paler than Theron but she's definitely not hotter. Must be paleness then. Conan O'Brien wouldn't be the worst king.

Second of three trailers is another nerd one. It's for the Avengers. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/ Should be decent. What will probably be the worst movie of the year, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter was fourth http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611224/ My #5(look at Scott Pilgrim post if you don't understand) is in it so I'll end up seeing it.

Titanic 3D came on fifth. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/ I won't be seeing it but it is important to note that when my parents took me to see Titanic in theaters 14 or so years ago, I saw my first pair of movie theater boobs. Never forget. Finally there was a little Twilight teaser. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1673434/ Can't say I know anything about these movies other than they doesn't really appeal to my demographic. I think this is the last in the series and it looks like she is a vampire now. What have I missed?

Moving on to Hunger Games, a movie that it seemed like everyone wants to see. The movie has made 364.9 million dollars internationally already in two weeks. It's budget is estimated at 78 million so at worst I figured it could be a lame movie with a high production value that looks nice. The plot has to do with kids killing each other. Something happened a long time ago that they don't really explain (you'll notice this happening all the time) and now as punishment, the twelve districts of the land have to offer up one male and one female child to compete to the death in the hunger games. The person who explains all of this is Stanley Tucci in a blue pony tail wig. Sounds an awful lot like this Japanese movie, Battle Royale http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/ that has a similar plot. I'll compare them later.

We meet our main character. Her name it Katniss but I thought forever that it was Agnus so that is what I'll be calling here. There is a guy named Peeta later and I will be calling him Peter. Say Peeta out loud in a British accent right now and I'll bet that you'll never want to hear it again. So Agnus is doing something with her little sister and the look super poor. Possibly red neck poor. She sneaks out to go hunting. Agnus has her bow aimed at a deer when this beefcake pops out and throws her off. They chat and seem to go way back. The guys name is Gale and mid conversation he pops out a bread roll. He gives some of it to Agnus who freaks out. They must really be hungry.

She gets back and has to get all dressed up for “the reaping”. That sounds awesome. The reaping is like a lottery where winning gets you entered into the hunger games. This creepy dude in drag (who turns out to be Elizabeth Banks, I figured it out after a while) is the one who does the drawing. Of course the little sister gets picked first. She is super weak and I have serious doubts about her winning but thankfully Agnus steps in and volunteers to take her place. A random guy, Peter gets drawn as the dude and I was surprised that her kind of boyfriend Gale didn't volunteer to go with her. I thought maybe they could've looked after each other in the games. Not happening though. Agnus seems to be not into Peter by giving him the cold shoulder. They say good bye (briefly) to their families and are off for the capital with Elizabeth Banks (her name is Effie Trinket, oh boy). Peter says they are given a mentor, someone who's won the annual hunger games as a coach. Their coach happens to be a boozed up Woody Harrelson named Haymitch. According to people who read the book, Woody wasn't cast well as Haymitch but it doesn't bother me, I like the guy. The thing about Haymitch is that he is a sucky coach. His advice is get used to being ready to die and he also has pretty gross feet. You know what bad good characters at the beginning of a movie mean though right? There's plenty of time for a personality turn around and redemption. It's called character development and really none of the characters but the Woody have it. Once he sobers up a bit, his main advice is to get people to like them.

They get to the capital and everyone there looks like freaks. It's like a bad Wonka factory nightmare. Any type of intenseness that the movie had created is now lost because people are walking around looking like unicorns crossed with peacocks. When Agnus and Peter arrive, the first thing they have to do is get ready for the opening ceremonies. Lenny Kravitz is their designer. He makes them outfits that are on fire which impresses the president, Donald Sutherland. For how nice some things in the movie looked, their CGI fire costumes did not impress. After the ceremonies(which they did impress in) they head back to their hotel rooms. One of the walls is like a giant window that you can change the backgrounds on to be like the beach or a forest. Might be my favorite thing from the whole movie.

Basically for the next two weeks they are put through a training program that will get them ready for the games. The camera keeps showing this one meathead so I imagine that he'll have a big part. I guess some districts have more money than others and districts 1 and 2 have their own programs that get competitors ready for the games from birth. The meathead happens to be from district 1. We see a little bit from the other kids in the games, like the chick from district 2 is good at throwing knives, but I would've liked more. Peter is having a rough time but ends up being strong. At least he can use that.

On one of the last days, they have to show off their skills to get sponsors. Apparently sponsors have some influence on the game and can give help to the kids that they like for cash. Agnus is a sharpshooter with her bow and goes in to show her stuff but misses the target on her first arrow. They laugh her off and totally miss it when she drills her second shot. Annoyed, Agnus shoots the apple out of the mouth of a pig that the sponsors were about to eat from, totally shocking them. Woody is happy with her little stunt but Effie isn't. The people who run the games give all of the contestants rankings for some reason. My guess is betting lines. Peter gets a 8/12 while Agnus gets an 11/12, which is super high. The president chats with the guy in charge of the game the next day. He isn't stoked with Agnus getting an 11. Says the only reason that they have the games in the first place and not just kill children every year is to give people a little bit of hope that their district could win. Giving a girl from district 12 (possibly the worst district) an 11 could be giving the people two much hope which is dangerous.

We are an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie and no games yet. I get building up a story and I like where it's going but at this moment I was just hit with an I want some hunger games now feeling. Out of nowhere, I noticed that one of the kids is a ginger girl. In my mind I was 100% certain that she would be the first to die. On the day before the games start, each person gets interviewed by Tucci. It's another opportunity for Agnus to get people to like her. She freezes up on stage but in the end pulls off a decent performance. Peter goes on to say he has a crush on Agnus. Here we go. Right when he said it, a guy in the theater yelled “Oh shoot” when it was silent and everyone laughed. Bet he felt great.

It's an hour and a half in or so and the games are finally ready to start. A lot of movies would be wrapping it up at this length. Woody tells Agnus that there are always a bunch of weapons piled in the middle of the field where they all start but avoid going to them because it always ends in an early bloodbath. Instead, head for high ground and look for water, which is your new best friend. Things start rapidly but the camera is super shakey so you can't make out any of the good action. Agnus grabs a backpack and heads into the forest. People are dying left and right going for weapons. Agnus bumps into the ginger and neither attacks, they just go their separate ways. How the ginger made it past five minutes is beyond me. Four or so die in the first minute and 13 are dead in the first eight hours. Only 11 left. After only a short amount of time, Agnus finds water, sets a few traps, cooks up a frog and climbs up a tree. Looks like she is playing the waiting game. The dead are announced and Peter isn't one of them so he is still trolling around somewhere. She dozes off in the tree. I thought, that's pretty dumb, all it takes is one roll over and she's dropping 30 feet to the ground. Smartly enough she tied herself down so well done Agnus.

She wakes up to a pack of five of the kids walking underneath her tree. It looks like they are all of the strong ones except Peter is with them too. They are using him to find Agnus and he is helping them find her. What a jerk off (J.O). They pass by without noticing her. She spends the entire next day up in the tree. Later it appears that she is walking past the outside boundaries and the hunger game people set fire in the way that she is walking. There is a big chase with the woods burning down around her, all in an attempt to bring her back into the arena and towards the alliance of killers that passed under her a few days before. She gets burned but ends up being able to jump in a river. The alliance shows up right as she is gets in the river, giving Agnus something new to worry about. They chase after her but she climbs up a tree again. The meathead climbs up but falls before getting to her. They shoot arrows but can't hit her either so Peter advises them that they should just wait it out because she has to come down some time. Total deutschebag.

Woody works on the sponsors and gets them to send Agnus some burn ointment for her leg while up in the tree. It really helps out. Everyone at the bottom of the tree is asleep when Agnus wakes up the next morning. In an adjacent tree, she sees this other girl. The girl points out that there is this massive bee hive right above her. These bees stings are hallucinatory and could be lethal if stung enough. Agnus cuts it down getting stung a few times herself and it ends up killing one of the girls at the bottom and scattering the rest. The girl who died has a bow which Agnus snags. She starts tripping because of the stings but Peter gets her to safety. She passes out and has a dream about her dad blowing up in a a coal mining accident. I guess that happened in real life. She wakes up to find the other girl from the tree standing over her. Looks like they are now allies because the girl looked after her. Tells Agnus that she has been sleeping for a couple days and I make my own guess that the only reason that they are both alive is because everyone else is tripping balls as well.

The two of them plan on destroying the strong alliances supplies. They come up with this decoy which the girl (Rue) will do while Agnus goes and blows everything up. Rue says that she's scared and Agnus says that everything will be ok. That sentence is screaming that something is going to happen to them. The plan gets put into action and the decoy works. The supplies are left being guarded by just one guy. All around the stock pile are landmines. The ginger out of nowhere runs up to the mines, avoids all of them and grabs some supplies for herself. I'm astonished. It must be a dye job. Agnus shoots some fruit which rolls down and hits a mine, blowing everything up. Success. The explosion is so big that it causes her to hear the Saving Private Ryan silent ringing. She heads back to Rue and hears her screaming for help. She is caught in a net which Agnus gets her out of. Right after that happen, a dude runs out and chucks a spear at Agnus who dodges (and you know off screen that it just hit Rue) and Agnus kills the guy with an arrow. Rue dies in Agnus' arms as she sings her to death. Agnus is bummed. She holds up her middle three fingers which is a sign of respect I guess. The people watching at home from Rue's district lose it and start a full riot.

The intercom comes on and someone says that the games rules have changed and now two people can win as long as they are from the same district. That happened because Woody told the game dude to play off Peter and Agnus' love story. Agnus is just walking and stumbles on Peter who has painted himself to look like a rock. I laughed really, really hard at how he looked. I guess he got his leg cut and Agnus gets him to a cave. She kisses him on the cheek which made me think what about Gale from the beginning? I thought they were together. Woody gets a sponsor to send them some soup which Agnus feeds to Peter. Movie got super gooey/lovey real fast. He goes on this whole speech about how he loves her. Ends in a kiss and snuggling. Gale is shown at home watching and he isn't stoked.

Intercom comes on again and says that tomorrow there will be a feast that has something that everyone left needs. Peter doesn't want her to go because it will be dangerous (really guy, you are in a game to the death, everything is dangerous) so she waits for him to fall asleep and heads out. She gets into a fight with the knife chick from district 2 when this black kid comes running out and slams knife girl to death. He says that he did it for Rue and they are now even. She goes back to Peter who is a giant weakling. I want him to die megabad. They snuggle for an entire day. They must be really scared.

THE MOVIE HAS TO END SOMETIME

Peter is finally healthy enough to get out of the cave so they split up but not for long. They find the gingers body . She had just died from eaten poisonous berries. Way to go ginger, stomach had to get in the way. She did masterfully getting this far on her own if we want to be serious. I rarely want to be serious though. To get things going I guess, these giant beasts are entered into the arena. They kill the black guy who saved Agnus almost instantly. The only people left now are the two from 12 and the meathead. The beasts chase Agnus and Peter to this ship which they are able to climb on top of. Beefcake is there waiting for them and they get in a big fight. Only problem with the fight is that the camera is so jumpy that you can't tell what is going on. In the end, beefcake falls to the beast and they've won.

Or they haven't. Intercom says they changed the rule back and only one can win. There can only be one! They both grab some of the berries that the ginger ate and say they'll die together. Aww. The game steps in because they need a winner and say that they'll allow them both to win. They feel like they beat the system plus they get to live. Sounds like they had a good hunger games. The president is pissed and kills of the dude who was running the games and allowed this to happen. They go back home to district 12 and the president walks up his stairs into darkness. The end.

I SAID THE END

Favorite Scene : The Spiderman trailer. Kidding. The whole reaping scene was done well. Agnus running away from the fire also was sweet.

Memorable Lines : “Just loosen your corset and have a drink”

“I mean, everyone loves a good underdog. I don't”

Rating : 6.0 Whatchamacallits. Here's what I think about Hunger Games. It wasn't for me. I thought the movie was clearly made for teenagers and people who read the book, not people who just want to see a drama/action movie. There are so many things that were never explained. Why is everyone so hungry first of all. Need some background story. And then there are the characters. Take for instance Peter. I know literally nothing about him pre-hunger games. The only thing I have to go on is his weak performance in the games. How am I supposed to root for that guy? What's up with the president, why is he like that? Why does everyone look like oompa loompas? Why does Stanley Tucci have a pony tail. For a movie that's almost two and a half hours long, they didn't get deep into anything. So I thought, if you aren't going to give a lot of back story, why not have the games be the longest part of the movie because that's what everyone wants to see but it wasn't?

Then there is the whole PG 13 aspect. I know the movie is for teens but it is about kids killing each other and they don't show anything. If they ever do show any killing, it's done with the shakiest camera work ever. Let's talk about the love story. There is nothing going on for almost two hours and then the games aren't important anymore, it's just Peter and Agnus in their love cave. Either go whole movie without the love triangle that I can only assume will be coming with Gale or go the whole movie with one. I went from being pretty into the movie to wanting to stop watching when they wouldn't get out of that cave. That's where Battle Royale comes in. Came out eight years before the Hunger Games books were published. It's a movie about one class every year being forced to fight to the death by the adults because of how bad they act in the world. There is a love story that is big but it isn't so in your face. There's a much wider range of characters in the games you can say which I enjoyed more. In hunger games it seems like kids were either there to kill or they were forced to be there to survive. There were 24 kids fighting in the games and we only knew about two of them. What's up with that? Finally when I go to see a movie about kids killing each other I'm just sick enough to want to see the kids kill each other (why else would you watch that) and Battle Royale does that. Now, does it have a 72 million dollar budget? No way. It will never compare in looks but it made a ridiculous story line into a ridiculous movie when Hunger Games took a ridiculous story and tried to make a serious movie. It looks great visually and I thought Jennifer Lawrence did a really good job. Can't say the same for the guy who played Peter. I'm all for the main character being a strong chick too. I'll watch the other two movies to see where the story goes but probably won't be spending money to see them.

Alternate Ending : SPOILERS OF COURSE. This is the ending that I really wanted. Peter does the heroic thing and throws himself onto the meathead causing them both to fall on the beasts. Peter dies, Agnus wins. Win, win for me.

What I would do if I was the main character: Tough to say. Spent more time building traps, less time sleeping in trees or cuddling in caves. I am trying to survive here. Also get food because I didn't see Agnus do a lot of eating. I would've totally grabbed a weapon in the beginning too. I'm pretty darn fast and it wouldn't have been a big deal at all.

What happens in the sequel: I thought for sure when Agnus got back home that her family would've been dead or something. The president wasn't happy and I thought he would've came down hard on her. That's another thing I forgot. You know there is more story coming but the movie didn't really set anything up? What's with that director, do you not know how to run a trilogy. Probably plenty of love stuff with Peter and Gale.