The Hunger Games

 

     "Hope, it is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained."
               ~ President Snow

     Katniss Everdeen is the only thing holding her small family together. Her father dies and after that, her mother retreats into a shell of sorrow and fear. Fear of losing the rest of her family. The choosing day arrives and Katniss is sure that her sister, Primrose, could not possibly be chosen. After all, her name is only in the drawing once. When Primrose is chosen, Katniss volunteers as tribute. Peeta Mellark is chosen as the male tribute.

Every year since the rebellion of district 13, the capital holds a game called "The Hunger Games." It was supposed to show their complete power over the 12 districts and their so called, "forgiveness." Each district is required to supply two tributes, a male and a female, between the ages of 12 and 18, to fight to the death.

The winner would be crowned with fame, riches, and a lifetime supply of food.

Katniss can't believe that she is actually going to have to fight, but she must win. For her sister. She promised that she would try to win, and she wasn't lying.

Rated PG-13, This is not a family friendly movie. After all half of the movie is teens hacking each other to pieces and some of them even try to get the most "kills." Although the camera does a good job of constantly flashing through the action to not show to much gore, it is still apparent. Bodies are shown lying across a field with blood covered wounds and sometimes with weapons still embedded in them. A girl is slammed against a wall until she dies and a boy is shown to have his neck snapped by another tribute. A girl is swarmed and killed by a nest of hyped up wasps, and another girl is hit by a spear and pulls it out of her stomach.

There is also moderate language scattered throughout the movie and a kiss.

There is little in the way of kindness in this movie. Katniss volunteers to be a tribute to save her sister, and another girl saves Katniss from the super killing wasps by covering her stings with healing leaves.

This movie should be PG-16. It is not family friendly and seeing teens hack away at each other mercilessly can give you chills. The concept of this movie is much the same as Gladiator. Except it's kids killing instead of adults and there is slightly less gore. It could be seen as interesting to some older viewers because of all the action but it is still not worth having. Watch it once or twice and its done. Do not buy. The cool action in it is not worth watching through the language and violence. Not recommended. I would rate this movie GD.

It has a neat story line that is fairly complicated at first and there is some good action in it, but it has too much gore and language to bring it any higher. That could be a generous rating.

Directed by: Gary Ross ~ Produced by: Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik 

 Music by: James Newton Howard ~ Rated: PG-13

Film Editing: Stephen Mirrione, Juliette Welfling ~ Casting by: Debra Zane

Running Time: 142 min. ~ DVD Release date: Aug. 18th 2012

Distributed by: Lionsgate

Hunger Games official trailer.