{"id":5526,"date":"2012-09-28T16:42:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T20:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5526"},"modified":"2012-09-28T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T20:42:27","slug":"br-hunger-games-the-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5526","title":{"rendered":"BR: Hunger Games, The (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>H<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label: Alliance (Canada) \/ Lionsgate (U.S.)\/ Region: A \/\u00a0Released: August 14, 2012<\/p>\n

Genre: Science-Fiction \/ Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis: \u00a0Based on the best-selling young adult series by Suzanne Collins, a fascist government in a dystopian America keeps its people in line by sending the best of its teens and children to a fight-to-the-death tournament.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0Disc 2 contains 5 Featurettes: “Game Maker: Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games Phenomenon” + “The World is Watching: Making The Hunger Games” + “Letters from the Rose Garden” + “Controlling the Games” + “Preparing for the Games: A Director’s Process” (Blu-ray exclusive) \/ Interview: “A Conversation with Gary Ross and Elvis Mitchell” \/ Propaganda Film \/ Marketing Archive \/ Digital Copy<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible not to compare Suzanne Collins\u2019 story of a dystopian society were children \/ teens are forced to participate in a battle to the death with Koshoun Takami’s novel Battle Royal<\/strong>, which spawned two films in 2000<\/a> [M<\/a>] and 2003<\/a> [M<\/a>], but there are significant differences that allow both works to stand on their own as unique cultural satires.<\/p>\n

Whereas Takami\u2019s approach amped up the violence and immediately plunged readers into the terror of being a teen forced to kill fellow classmates, Collins focused on slowly building up the mythology within her Orwellian world, as well as the relationships between heroine Katniss and her fractured family, her one true love, and the strange friendships and alliances she\u2019s forced to build prior to the games \u2013 that of her media-savvy mentor, a personal stylist, and her \u2018real\u2019 and \u2018screen\u2019 boyfriends \u2013 the boy she loves at home, and the local boy with whom she\u2019s been paired to represent her district.<\/p>\n

Much like the more benign The Truman Show<\/strong> (1998) and the shrill Gamer<\/strong> (2009), everything is televised, and the shifting perspectives between contestants, emcees, organizers, and audiences capture a world where the media is abusive in the hands of corporations and governments. One unique concept (possibly borrowed from Battle Royale II: Requiem<\/strong>, is the use of viewers who sponsor players and fund extra benefits in the form of live-saving ointments, or nutritious soup).<\/p>\n

Unlike the Battle Royale<\/strong> films and Gamer<\/strong>, the actual combat within Hunger<\/strong> is dialed down to a PG-13 level, with any gore appearing as clinical wounds, and most of the hand-to-hand combat happening in stylized montages designed to impress the stress level of being hunted and surprised versus a showcase for splattering, grisly violence. Blood-letting is saved for specific confrontations in the finale, but most of the trauma is obfuscated by careful editing and cinematography. The villains are grey rather than psychotic, although there are two ‘career’ players clearly hooked on the thrill of achieving a high kill count.<\/p>\n

Collins, who also co-wrote the script, apparently supervised the script\u2019s design, while ensures the unresolved character threads will be picked up in the next film (and likely progress into a third).<\/p>\n

Whereas Battle I<\/strong>\u2019s character focus moved from a series of interconnected micro-battles to a final good vs. evil, Hunger<\/strong> sticks with its central heroine \u2013 a move that allows her character to intensify, albeit at the expense of the fellow combatants, who remain generally banal teen killers. After the game\u2019s debut where the 24 teens are hacked down to 12, it\u2019s essentially a cat & mouse game between Katniss and her \u2018screen\u2019 boyfriend, a few reluctant killers, a passive-aggressive killer, and blood-thirsty career killers.<\/p>\n

Gary Ross\u2019 direction is well-balanced, but the PG-13 design diminishes the film\u2019s impact. A much tamer work than Gamer<\/strong>, Hunger<\/strong> is also reflective of the American commercial culture where violence is packaged for the broadest possible audience, and specialty fans wanting gore must access premium, specialty venues (like unrated video releases, or via grislier foreign films that spawned a tamer American remake).<\/p>\n

What\u2019s ironic is how Hunger<\/strong> was produced & released by Lionsgate, an indie studio whose prior wealth and reputation came from the Saw<\/a><\/strong> franchise \u2013 torture porn – the polar opposite of Collins\u2019 canon, and yet Hunger<\/strong> may become a bigger cash cow than the Saw<\/strong> series, since its penetration isn’t restricted to R-level audiences.<\/p>\n

Those first exposed to Battle Royale<\/strong> will find Hunger Games<\/strong> too simplistic, but it has its own merits. The real challenge will be how well Collins and the filmmakers can develop the franchise into an engaging series with increasingly riskier entanglements.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Fan Sites<\/a> — Wiki<\/a> — \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmographies: J.N. Howard<\/a> \/ T. Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0H<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ H . Film: Very Good\/ BR Transfer: Excellent\/ BR Extras: Very Good Label: Alliance (Canada) \/ Lionsgate (U.S.)\/ Region: A \/\u00a0Released: August 14, 2012 Genre: Science-Fiction \/ Drama Synopsis: \u00a0Based on the best-selling young adult series by Suzanne Collins, a fascist government in a dystopian America keeps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1130,1547,1545,1549,1546],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1r8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5526"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5549,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions\/5549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}