Review of The Hunger Games (2012) by Yellowpride — 23 Mar 2012

As someone who was a fan of the books, I was a little nervous going in to this movie. Not just because I was worried that it would be good enough, but also because first person narratives are generally harder to adapt to the screen. I was worried that the main character would lose a lot of her complexity in the translation, just because of the limitations of the medium. I'm happy to say that Jennifer Lawrence's performance absolutely proved me wrong. I think they made the character a little nicer for the movie (or, they left out some of her meaner stuff for the sake of pacing) and there were a few times where she had to have something explained to her rather than working it out herself (again, that has more to do with translating a first person narrative to screen without including a voice over), but the integrity of the character is still very much intact. Lawrence's performance was nicely understated while also selling the key emotional moments.

If I had one complaint about this movie (which I do), it's that the story probably would have been better served if they were willing to let it have an R-rating. I understand why they wouldn't want that, considering the demographic they're aiming for, but a lot of the violence of the actual Hunger Games was a little too sanitized for my taste.