The Hunger Games (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I talked my friend and his wife into going to see Hunger Games with us. At the end, as we left the theater, I asked “how did you like it?’

“It glued me to the seat, but I didn’t like what it was.”

I knew exactly what he meant. This is a movie about kids killing kids. Do we really want that message, and image being fed into the brains of our teenagers? The fact is that teens across America have flocked to see this film. They relate to the heroine and her friend. My own granddaughters have seen the film twice. A cult grows around this film. The eighty year old man who owns the farm where filming took place is selling because strangers are driving across his property and stopping to visit the buildings used in District Twelve scenes. This is not normal folks.

The country of Panem covers most of North America and has divided it into twelve districts. The richest and the most political is District One. Each successive district after is somewhat poorer and less influential. District Twelve is the poorest and the people live in desperation.

A seventy-four years earlier there was a revolt squashed by the government. As punishment, they created the Hunger Games. Each district must send two tributes to the games for sacrifice.

What is evil in this film is the government, and its totalitarian leader. The President believes he must show that he and his government are so strong they can impose their will upon the people. Henceforth, he commands each District to send Tributes to the games. The Tributes are payment for the revolt that occurred seventy-four years ago.

Last week, I posted about Hunger Games the book. Today, I am posting about the movie. It is great! Although I hate the concept of savagery being promoted, the story is nonetheless great. It is a great depiction of what happens when the government breaks the will of the people. The actors are totally believable, and the story follows the book almost exactly. I had difficulty picking up changes introduced by the director to keep all the critical elements of the story in place, and  I only noticed two incidents that were out-of-sequence. Otherwise the movie tells the story accurately. There is so little difference between the two, one could skip one or the other. I happen to like to do both; read the book and see the film.

The film is long because it does pay so much attention to the story, yet time flies by quickly. Before we knew it the end came and we felt it was too soon. The last chapters of the book dealing with the victory celebrations, and revelations of unrest in the Districts were omitted.

As adults we saw elements of our own government creeping into this scenario, and felt the incremental losses of our personal liberty pointing us toward Panem. That may also be what the youngsters see. God love them if that is it, because then there is hope for the USA.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ Stars for story, acting, setting, costumes, direction

No Stars for moral content or promotion of the image of a corrupt evil savage government.

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• Movie Review: The Hunger Games (dawn.com)
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Filed under: Government, Movie Review | Tagged: Film, Hunger Game, Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss Everdeen, Panem, Suzanne Collin, The Hunger Games universe, United States | 8 Comments »