Not a fan.
The more I see of this series the more I rather dislike it. I actually had to re-watch this movie because I fell asleep the first time.
I get that it’s supposed to be a kind of sci-fi Theseus. No minotaur though. Although I guess there is a maze of sorts in the upcoming sequel, but nothing comes of it. I also appreciate the various attempts to offer social commentary on news programing and reality TV. But ultimately don’t care. This comes off as being as light as Twilight. Almost nothing worthy of holding my attention occurs onscreen. All the cool stuff is suggested, or happens off screen. I know, I know, it’s a kid’s story. Pacific Rim is a kid’s story. Maybe that’s not fair… The Princess Bride is a kid’s story. At some point you have to care about a character for some reason on some level otherwise it’s just… Spy Hard.
The evil Capitol (who demands child tributes each year from other vanquished states to fight to the death for their amusement) is still the antagonist. In order to punish Katniss and Peeta for surviving the last games by manipulation of the mob by playing up their (fake, or is it?) love for the cameras; the new tributes will all be former victors. Hence Katniss will have to compete again. The new gamemaster (the last one was beheaded for failure) is played by Phillip Seymore Hoffman. His character is my favorite part of the film, and his character is a massive style departure from the prose counterpart. That’s all to the good.
There’s some interesting stuff at parts, and maybe I’m being unfairly critical, but the story just comes across as lazy on screen. That’s because the viewer can’t experience Katniss’s thoughts and nobody likes the internal thought voice over. Like I said, I fell asleep the first time.
The cast is all great, the books (which are also kind of underwhelming) take place mostly inside the main chicks’ head and there’s almost no actual action depicted in the stories. So the movie just looks like people thinking about shit. There’s some monkeys and an evil poison gas cloud. But mostly it’s just bleah. With a cliffhanger.
Feel comfortable skipping this.