Parachuting in with a late (late!) review of
The Hunger Games
This is a laz quote from last March
The film looked like crap, too, from the photography to the unimaginative design. Costumes were a joke.
Now, I'm not exactly a production design aficionado, but good lord did that lack of imagination hurt this film.
There was one great scene anchoring THG. During the pre-games festivities, amidst the green screen CGI and self-consciously "weird" costumes, the mood felt very antiseptic, like every aesthetic decision had passed through four layers of studio management, and really lacking a sense of dread. And then Katniss steps into the last room, alone with Lenny Kravitz, and the two of them just knock it out of the park with quiet panic once the final countdown starts, she steps back and forces herself to walk into the elevator, glances back at Kravitz, until she's pulled away up into the light......
....Only to have us wait for another 45 second countdown. 45 seconds! Sorry, I thought we were building momentum there for a second; carry on.
I know its a bit hacky, but I thought the movie suffered by choosing not to rely on first-person narration from Katniss- instead of letting us into her thoughts, having the announcers stare directly into the screen helpfully drop exposition about Super Bees was the worst of all worlds. If you're going to do that, you have to rip off The Truman Show: Ed Harris was a bastard, but he and his technicians were characters. Instead we cut away to Technician D in the control room pulling up a holo-Boar and tossing it around the screen like an Apple tablet commercial from 2020 and the Controller nods and smiles ominously and I know what function this scene serves, adapted from the novel, but now we're wasting time chewing through plot points rather than using precious screen time to say anything about the choices Katniss is making.
There were missed opportunities for potential, I guess is what I'm saying. Hopefully the series pulls out a Harry Potter-like renaissance now that it's a proven movie franchise.
Anyway. Jennifer Lawrence is awesome. Pick Liam Hemsworth, not the doughy-faced lummox.