The Hunger Games

Based on the book "The Hunger Games" from Author Suzanne Collins, the movie is set in the future where North America is now called Panem. It has a Capitol where the upper class live surrounded by 12 Districts of the poor and middle class who do most of the work. War is a thing of the past, but each year there is a lottery in which one boy and one girl aged 12-18 are picked from each district to play in a tournament to the death. We follow the path of sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen from District 12 who steps in to take the place of her younger sister when her name is picked to be in the tournament. The game field is a simulated forest in the Capitol where different obstacles can be produced by the game supervisor. Katniss needs to play the game not only with her natural survival skills she acquired by providing food for her Mother and Sister, but with new skills she needs to acquire concerning her fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark concerning humanity and love.

Katniss is played by X-men First Class's  Jennifer Lawrence.
Peeta is played by Bridge to Terabithia's  Josh Hutcherson

Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Banks, Wes Bently, Woody Harrelson, and Lenny Kravits are in the cast as well.

Directed by Gary Ross who also directed Seabiscuit and Pleasantville.
Who will like this movie:

The most obvious answer to this is people who enjoyed the book. Most of the people I talked to who have read it, say that it follows the book pretty accurately. I also see an older "Twilight" audience really enjoying this movie. However, I say older for a reason. There are pretty violent and hard to watch scenes in this where it's not a fictional vampire or werewolf, but real people...kids really... killing for their survival that brings it closer to home and may not be suitable for young teens and tweens. For that reason also, it's almost got a "Running Man" feel to it as well as a bit of Predator (without the Arnold muscles) which rules it out as a "Chick Flick".  It's not a movie to just veg out at.

Phantom Thoughts:

It's hard to imagine that in the future, our upper class will start to wear rainbow colored French Renaissance clothing, but it makes for a great visual. But that's not what bothered me about this movie. The thing that got me was the lack of explanation of what has happened to the United States and what brought about the games to begin with. Maybe those who read the book have a better understanding of it, but I have not. They kinda touch on it briefly, but I still had questions at the end of the film. There have been mixed reviews and I can see why, but overall I liked it. Stanley Tucci did a good job as the game show host, but I feel this could have been better cast (even though I think he's a fantastic actor!). Lenny Kravitz played a wonderful part as the costume designer. Nice to see that they didn't go with the over the top gay character for this role. Woody Harrelson was the drunk mentor who was a past winner of the games. It reminds me of the Tom Hanks character in "A League of their Own". He played the part well, but I think Hanks did a better job.

Predictably, you need the underdog to root for and the bad guy to boo. Katniss is the hero we are lead to cheer and District 1 and 2 are the kids who are trained to fight in the games since birth and are the "mean bad guys" in the tournament. I know people found it hard to watch kids killing other kids in this movie, but it would have been even harder (and more realistic in my opinion) to have these kids battle their own sense of humanity vs. survival as well, instead of just a few of them  the way it is now.

SPOILER:  In the end, it is the BIG government types who are running the Games who turn out to be the "bad guy" and although the movie ends with a full arc, there is a set up for future movies (there are two more books after all). Kind of the way "Star Wars: A New Hope" did.

Not a bad movie. I liked it. It had enough story/action/drama mixed with a little darkness that kept me interested. I will be seeing the next movies as they come out.