The Bounteous Feast

The Hunger Games movie review

I must say, I must say -- I had heard good reviews about The Hunger Games before going to a belated matinee this afternoon.  It was there that I found the cinema equivalent of a thirst-quenching oasis in the vast parched desert that is the current entertainment business.  With more past movies being released in theaters every year (i.e. Star Wars Episode I, Titanic), as good as they were and are, The Hunger Games brought it’s A-game in a fresh, crisp way.

Because few people really enjoy a full, in-depth review of a movie I will succinctly describe why this movie did it for me:

• newish talent (Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen) mixed with the more experienced (Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, and Donald Sutherland as President Snow)

Katniss was great.  Cinna was perfect.  Caesar Flickerman was awesome.  He even pulled off the blue hair(if only just barely).

• a very tasteful score that was not only unique but elegantly used, composed by one of my favorites, James Newton Howard
• the one negative I had in mind going into the movie was the “on-fire” scene -- though potentially a corny special-effects flop I thought it was tasteful and, for me, the music and overall excitement of the scene sold it
• though music was used to punctuate the happenings on screen there were many whole scenes with out an ounce of music, especially in and near the beginning of the movie
• honor paid to the book -- even with much changed and whole parts removed the movie paid its dues and was rewarded with a well paced and balanced story

-  I know I’m getting older but at times I thought the camera was jostled a tad too much in some of the more tense scenes

All in all: it was great.  I wish I had taken my notebook to jot down some scribbles but these were the things that stood out to me.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s probably close to moving to the dollar theater, but I didn’t feel cheated out of a matinee price.