In 7 words or less: The Running Man with tweens
What's it all About? Panem is ruled by the Capitol, code for the bourgeois who live a great life on booze, oysters and prettifying themselves. The rest of the districts are kept under control, starved and made to work in the industry their district is known for - coal, electrics etc. You may be thinking - hey why don't these poor oppressed peeps do some rioting and fight back? Well once upon a time they did and now every year to remind them of the consequences and prevent them ever doing it again each district is required to put forward two tributes aged 12 - 18 to take part in the Hunger Games. These are selected at random from a hat (not literally a hat put basically yes) and they enter an area. You know the rest, last person alice wins. Oh dear! Katniss Everdeen's 12 year old sister is chosen and she steps in and volunteers. Next Peeta the bakers son is chosen and they are swept off to take part in the 74th Hunger Games. The remaining film is about the games and people doing bad murders and them sort of sort of not been in love. Swoon.
Best bits? I liked the portrayal of the capitol it's exactly how I imagined it all silly outfits and odd decorations on their faces. The scene where they come in on their chariots on fire was pretty cool. Go Peeta, Go Katniss!! Lenny Kravitz was right good at playing Cinna, Katniss's stylist, the scenes between them expressed the seriousness of what was happening where in others it felt a bit 'ooo off we go to a big murder party, weeeeeee'!!
The game makers scenes were also great. It's the thing in the book that's hard to visualise how they make the arena and I thought they captured it well, they were all sat round a big massive round giant ipad thing, looked cool. Modern.
Did it make you think thoughts? I thought how many more tween hype novels can I give myself too?! Harry Potts, Twilight and now the Hunger Games?! Although it wasn't it massive wow that's the best film ever I absolutely loved the book and it was fun to see it played out, it didn't annoy me or anything like it can when you your fave books hit the screen, but it was quite an obvious interpretation. At times it was like moving from one event to the other with not much holding it together in between. I don't think the film really captured the dark times in the districts, it's the most interesting part of the whole story and was a bit overlooked.
Would you watch it again? Yes of course. I haven't mentioned the love triangle yet (obvs there's one of those) and it was good fun to watch, completely cheesy but loved it.
Rating (out of 100%): I'm giving it a 'quick, shoot down that rat and get it on the fire for a snack' 75% great teen fodder...if you like that sort of thing (which clearly I do!)
