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THE HUNGER GAMES: My First Movie Review

March 26th, 2012

I’m writing this movie review as someone who has never written a movie review before. So I won’t be using words that “professional movie reviewers” do because:

1. I didn’t go to film school

2. I didn’t fail out of film school and become a professional movie reviewer

3. I’m not bitter, having failed out of film school, so I can still appreciate a good movie without being envious that I didn’t make it.

All that said, I’m reviewing “The Hunger Games”, a movie based on a series of books that is intended for female youth readers and which I only went to see because my wife is female and youthful…(but is NOT a teenager. Let’s just be clear on that. I have her papers.)

In any case, we went to see The Hunger Games on Saturday afternoon at the Humber Cinema which is not exactly state-of-the-art and for that reason is not exactly packed with people which is exactly how I like it.

I had zero expectations going into The Hunger Games except perhaps I would leave with that same “I guess I would like this more if I were a teen-aged girl” feeling I felt after my wife dragged me to Twilight.

Much to my surprise, The Hunger Games hooked me right away, with a believable not-too futuristic story, a competition element with “Rocky-like” overtones and an accurate portrayal of our infatuation with reality tv and the ridiculousness of the rich 1% douche bags of society.

I’m not going to give any part of the movie away (I hate when movie reviewers do that) but I will say that the movie was well written, well paced and well performed from all aspects. There were a couple of moments when I thought to myself “as if that would ever happen” but I’ve also experienced those moments watching live Sports coverage (Sydney Crosby’s overtime goal at the 2010 Olympics comes to mind) so my disbelief was easily suspended.

In short, I left the movie thinking not only “that was a great movie” but also thinking “that was a great social commentary on where the world could be heading if we don’t smarten up”. A feeling that I think was echoed by many of my “fellow” movie-goers (the audience was mostly female). It also made me question again why no one ever dies in a game of “Survivor”? They should either let someone die or change the name of that show.

But I digress. The Hunger Games is a movie well worth seeing whether you’re a teen-aged boy or girl or in your twenties or thirties or forties or fifties (those in their sixties and above, I’m not counting you out either. I was just trying to keep this review as short as possible…which I have now failed at).

And even the very rich and obnoxious, whom this movie does a great job of holding a mirror up to, will be entertained if they can temporarily remove the giant stick from their giant asses and slither down from their pedestals for a couple of hours to sit among the riff-raff.

Good talk everybody.