The Hunger Games (2012): An Adequate Teen Movie

Teen fiction often finds itself caught between the rock of being too grown-up for children who need a light pat on the head and the hard place of being too immature for adults who desire truly challenging media. Sometimes, movies such as these are sophisticated enough to reach the lower bounds of PG-13, but the ways in which they pull their punches tend to be hard to miss. Their observable desire to be more grown-up than their target audience will allow them to be isn't a new dilemma in Hollywood, but as far as teen movies like it are concerned, The Hunger Games does a considerably good job with one hand tied behind its back. Based on Suzanne Collins's dystopian novel of the same name, it's a movie that clearly wants to be able to honestly depict the brutality of its titular contest, a televised spectacle where one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts in the country of Panem are forced to fight to the death inside a massive, forested arena. And even though concerned parents were never going to let this movie be the dark and mature dystopian it clearly wants to be, The Hunger Games still plays its hand considerably well, even if it had the knife of common social decency held to its throat the entire time it was at the card table.

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark aren't here to make friends, even with each other. Ideally, they'll be able to murder a bunch of other children first, avoid an untimely and violent death second, and then finally make it back home to their families, though it turns out only one of them is allowed to survive the games; too bad, so sad. You might think that The Hunger Games would be a purebred action spectacle, like so many other teen movies vying against it for attention from the pubescent public. And in some ways, you'd be right. And yet, hiding in the noise is a quiet, restrained quality to this movie that sometimes pops its unassuming head out to serve it more loyally than any of its action does or even can. This movie is the first in an adaptation of a franchise that isn't too far beyond the realm of expectations when it comes to teen fiction tropes. Still, it can hit harder than you might expect, not necessarily because of what it's about, but rather because of how it's about it. It can be satisfyingly contemplative of itself and of its more fundamental, if not necessarily more complex, underpinnings.

The cinematography and visual effects of The Hunger Games aren't anything special to write home about, but the editing of the movie strikes a really nice balance between what we see and what we hear. The sound design by Lon Bender (The Revenant) betrays a surprising intelligence on the part of a crew that isn't even making an original movie. Bender and his movie know when to make noise, but they also know when being quiet will speak more loudly than anything else. It's mostly when this movie is the quietest that it practically screams at us. Still, Bender is sometimes working with a subpar reference. The visual side of this movie, while at best passable, occasionally sinks to near-Nickelodeon levels of quality. Too many of the sets are constructed of either janky computer graphics or plasticky building materials that look like they were on loan from iCarly's emo problem sibling. The Hunger Games looks its best when it's able to utilize whatever natural terrain the location scouts were able to track down, but its more inorganic sets and setpieces took me out of the experience more often than I would have liked with their dubious adequacy.

Perhaps this occasional artificiality is a forgivable overstep that can be attributed to either not wanting to scare the barely teens watching this movie or to budget constraints. However, one aspect of The Hunger Games that is more firmly within its control is the characters we're supposed to either love or hate, and while Katniss isn't the most complex character of all time, Jennifer Lawrence plays her with such sorrowful hopefulness and single-minded goodness that it's utterly impossible not to admire her. Hailing from District 12, she's a noble light shining amidst a dark and depraved world, the sort of character who always knows the right thing to say, the right thing to do. She looks out for others. She cares for those who are hurt. She loves with both a pure heart and fiery passion. She's a capable ideal for the oppressed to look up to, and in a dystopian world, that can be a powerful thing. And yes, she and Peeta fall in love, but you already knew that, even if you didn't really.

The Hunger Games can sometimes appear restrained by both its limiting teen movie trappings and its limitless and excessive ambition, but it's nonetheless a solid adaptation of some grim yet enchanting source material that I would be more than happy to watch more of, especially if I'm right in saying that a comfortable amount of the problems in this first movie could be solved in sequels by a few extra zeroes in the budget.

The Hunger Games (2012) - 7/10

Proverbs 29:12-13