Quick Review of the Hunger Games

Since final exams are only a few days away, time for me to review a movie I saw weeks ago.

The Hunger Games was entertaining, but I had some big problems with the movie.  By extension, I would probably have problems with the book for the same reasons.

There are a handful of problems with the story, but at a certain point, you just come across as a curmudgeon.  So, let's just say I suspend disbelief for the many logically unlikely things in the story and let's proceed to the end.

In the end, the main character, Katniss, devises a plan that essentially forces the game's overlords to allow both her and her buddy to live, instead of forcing one of them to kill off the other.

Now, there are three basic ways the story could have ended, once the boy and the girl were left at the end.

The first is that one of them could have had to kill the other.  This is, without a doubt, the most dramatically powerful ending for a story that is about cruelty and survival.  Or, one of the characters sacrifices himself/herself in order to save the other.  This ending would show the most redemptive qualities of the human soul.

They glanced right past that one.

The second way it could have ended would be with the death of one kid, and the suicide of the other.  Or the mutual suicide of both.

The movie leads you to believe that this is an ending so out of the question that the games' organizers were so appalled that they would rather knuckle under to a teenager than allow it to happen.

Let's step back for a minute, here.  What they're saying is that audiences would never accept a love story where two teenage lovers, because they could not live together, took their own lives.

Not only was this idea abhorrent to the writer of the story, but it was, apparently, so obviously abhorrent that the evil empire that sadistically puts on the games was okay with over 2 dozen dead kids, but were completely horrified at the idea that the hunger games could end with two star-crossed teenage lovers killing themselves.

Okay, so not only did the writer of the hunger games zip right past the most powerful emotional ending to a story about surival in a sadistic combat game, the author totally blew it on the most powerful possible ending for a story about star-crossed teenage lovers. 

In fact, if she had really been thinking, she'd have made the two star-crossed teenage lovers from colonies that would never have accepted their love for each other...

Okay, so, the two best endings to the story?  Forget all about them.

The ending they picked?  God, you can tell this was written by a woman, primarily for the benefit of teenage girls.  The two live happily ever after!  Even though their mom... I mean, the evil empire tells them they shouldn't!  And how does Katniss, the clever protagonist, do it?

She locks herself in her room, tells her mom that she's ruining her life, and threatens to kill herself if she doesn't get her way.

I mean, she tells an evil empire that if they don't respond to Katniss' little tantrum, she'll give them the most romantically compelling ending to a Hunger Games that could ever possibly happen.  So, naturally, they give in to the tantrum.

Really?  I mean, they couldn't possibly allow both the kids at the end to die!!!  That's just insane!  Could never happen!  What sort of drama would that create?  I mean... other than the kind of drama that is pretty well recognized as the greatest love story in the history of the written word. 


Yes, I know this is tween lit, which means it exists entirely in a world where things make sense to a 14 year old girl.  It's a marvel that everybody isn't wearing sparkly pink hats in this universe.  Still, yeesh...

So, overall, somewhat entertaining, but it operates on the level of a 14 year old girl.