Film - the Hunger Games - No Spoilers
Mar. 24th, 2012 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorsetgirl.
I’ve been holding off reading the book(s) because with the sole exception of Harry Potter, every film-from-a-book I’ve ever seen has been a major disappointment. So I decided to watch the film first and work up.
[As an aside, my fifteen-year-old has read the books, and he felt the film reflected them (or more particularly, plot-wise, the first one) reasonably well in terms of characterisation, plot and general tone.]
Well, I enjoyed the film, quite a lot. Reading the reviews this evening when we got home, there are various points from the book that critics say have been left out of the film; well, maybe for some people, but I got them. I’m looking forward to reading the books now, but I totally got the message that this is about us, and our society, and the extent to which some characters were just performing for the cameras.
“Most Interesting Male” Award: There was one character who, all the way through the film, I was thinking, “Who is that guy? Very charismatic, rather attractive and faintly familiar.” Watching the credits at the end, I was gobsmacked to find it was Woody Harrelson. (Well, OK, I haven’t seen him in anything except Cheers, and he was just a pretty boy and presumably thirty years younger then). Very nice piece of work there.
The only time the film dragged, for me, was when it suddenly turned into a teenage luuurve moment, but apparently the books were written for teenagers, so I suppose that was to be expected.
Conclusion: go and see it, it’s an interesting story and a clever look at the superficial nature of modern society.
I’ve been holding off reading the book(s) because with the sole exception of Harry Potter, every film-from-a-book I’ve ever seen has been a major disappointment. So I decided to watch the film first and work up.
[As an aside, my fifteen-year-old has read the books, and he felt the film reflected them (or more particularly, plot-wise, the first one) reasonably well in terms of characterisation, plot and general tone.]
Well, I enjoyed the film, quite a lot. Reading the reviews this evening when we got home, there are various points from the book that critics say have been left out of the film; well, maybe for some people, but I got them. I’m looking forward to reading the books now, but I totally got the message that this is about us, and our society, and the extent to which some characters were just performing for the cameras.
“Most Interesting Male” Award: There was one character who, all the way through the film, I was thinking, “Who is that guy? Very charismatic, rather attractive and faintly familiar.” Watching the credits at the end, I was gobsmacked to find it was Woody Harrelson. (Well, OK, I haven’t seen him in anything except Cheers, and he was just a pretty boy and presumably thirty years younger then). Very nice piece of work there.
The only time the film dragged, for me, was when it suddenly turned into a teenage luuurve moment, but apparently the books were written for teenagers, so I suppose that was to be expected.
Conclusion: go and see it, it’s an interesting story and a clever look at the superficial nature of modern society.
