Hunger 2012.

Another teenage book adaptation was released this year, this time it was Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games to receive the Hollywood treatment.

Set in a dystopian futuristic world where the rich essentially oppress the poor for their own greedy means, The Hunger Games focuses on the story of the poor as they are sent on an annual trip to the big city to fight to the death with one another.

It sounds ridiculous but in fact there isn’t a great deal of difference between the rich and poor divide in this story and the one found in real life, with the only difference being that governments don’t openly kill poor people…

These mass killings happen in an event known as The Hunger Games. A boy and a girl from each district make up the 24 children who fight each other to the death every year leaving one glorious winner to bring pride to their district. The rich say this empowers the poor but obviously it’s just to keep them in their fearful place.

This year however all this changes as Katniss Everdeen volunteers to go to the games in place of her little sister who gets chosen from this big ominous fishbowl of names. She represents District 12 with Peeta (or Peter as I call him) who coincidentally has a crush on her. The pair are whisked off to the big city to prepare for the fight and to be pampered by the likes of Lenny Kravitz, yes I don’t know why either.

During this time they have to also meet the public and do media events with the aim of gaining sponsors who will help them in the games by giving them useful weapons or medicine, something that I don’t really get. One of the key media chiefs is a bizarre and eccentric man named Caesar Flickerman, who’s played by an equally bizarre and eccentric Stanley Tucci.

Once all that public fanfare is out of the way we’re treated to the actual battle itself and it’s bloody exciting to say the least. As you’d expect it’s got loads of action sequences and is pretty suspenseful in parts, especially because the four kids from the strongest districts band together and pick off all the others before presuming killing each other. You end up feeling for the characters, and when certain ones perish you are like “WHAT!? NOOOOO!”

It is strange in some areas though, for example they’re supposed to be out there fending for themselves but if the TV producers want to liven things up they can shoot fireballs at you without warning. Kind of takes the whole survival element away if you ask me. One scene sees Katniss climbing into the forest to gain shelter and build weaponry, the production team don’t like this so shoot at her with fire and herd her towards the pack of the meanest kids in town… yeah, because that’s fair.

There are a few strange things I found with this movie really and most are to do with The Hunger Games itself. I mean, if Katniss didn’t volunteer herself to save her sister then that would have meant her sister would have gone into battle. Her sister was like nine years old! She was tiny! How can they plausibly pit nine year old girls off against big bulky 18 year old men?

And I know rich people hate the poor and love to oppress them, but I’d like to think even the evil aristocrats of Great Britain wouldn’t like to watch poor people fight to the death. It’s a little weird that people watch the Hunger Games as if it’s a game of football, cheering when 10 year old girls are killed by a man with an axe…

In saying that though The Hunger Games is probably the best teenage novel adaptation ever, making the Twilight series look even worse than it already is (and that really is saying something). I saw this movie to be the I am Number Four of this year but I was wrong, The Hunger Games didn’t treat its audience like idiots, it didn’t talk down to them, instead it managed to simply tell its story and connect with the audience perfectly. Even the love story isn’t horribly condescending… take note Twilight.

I highly recommend this film to pretty much anyone. It’s not just for teenagers it pretty much caters for all ages and as I say treats the whole audience with respect (again, take note Twilight). The acting in this movie is great from everyone, especially Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of Katniss and Stanley Tucci’s tantalisingly brilliant depiction of Caesar Flickerman

Overall this really showed the world how to make a teenage book into a movie, even showing the likes of Harry Potter a thing or two. There will be sequels; the amount of money it made should make that an absolute certainly.

Final Verdict: 4 Stars. Leaves you hungry for more.