The Hunger Games (2012): A Lukewarm Appetiser

I had the opportunity to go on a vacation towards the end of 2023, and as most of you would know, there's flight entertainment in the form of movies, music or even games to help passengers kill time in the air.

Feeling relatively fresh from my previous initial exposure to The Hunger Games series, I instantly knew which movie I had to watch! That's the very first movie of The Hunger Games, which was released in 2012.

A little rewind - I watched The Hunger Games - The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in November 2023 and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. You can find my movie review post here. Over there, it was where @nomnomnoodle recommended me to watch the other movies in this series (which I was already planning to do so, hehe!), so here I am, with my review of The Hunger Games.

Given the movie has been around for sometime, I might go into greater detail about the movie, but I will try my best to avoid spoilers hehe!

To set the context, the Hunger Games is an annual event where the Capitol (the government I suppose) forces each of the 12 districts to send a boy and girl tribute to compete in a life and death "game", where only 1 (out of 24) tributes will survive. Because I watched "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes", I roughly knew what to expect. Of course, the star Jennifer Lawrence is one of the tributes from her district, I will leave viewers to guess how she fares against the other 23 tributes. Hehe!

So let's go into what I liked and disliked about the movie!

One thing I liked was there was enough action and minor plot twists to keep me entertained. The action started even before the actual games began, and I immediately noticed the huge contrast between the living conditions between the tributes now versus the ones in "The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes" which took place 64 years ago. For the current one, the infrastructure was more advanced and there was more technology involved. Even the food was better.

The actual Hunger Games turned out to be pretty average. There were minor plot twists such as the change of the game rules, but other than that, it was just some fighting, some sabotage, and some manipulation from the people in Capitol. It was a little bit of everything but nothing that was extremely spectacular or super emotional. For me, the most memorable moment would be the friendship of Katniss (that's Jennifer Lawrence's character) and Rue (one of the little girls competing in the game). The friendship, inevitably, had to end somehow and it was definitely very sad.

However, one thing I didn't quite enjoy about the movie is the pace of the movie. Personally, I find the pace of the movie pretty slow. At a runtime of 142 minutes, I was expecting it to be very eventful but the movie moved painfully slow. It took almost a full hour before the actual Hunger Games kicked off. But it's probably not entirely the movie's fault because it's following the plot of the novel. Nonetheless, "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" packed a lot more drama and action despite coming in with only an additional 15 minutes in runtime.

All in all, The Hunger Games ticked all the checkboxes for an entertaining movie with an interesting plot, but I was really, really hoping for even more drama, more plot twists, more moments that tug at my heartstrings, more internal struggles for the characters within... And all my expectations didn't materialise. That said, the movie did deliver the intended message, on how our current reality bear some semblance to the games. In an uncanny way, it's also a "dog-eat-dog" world and every man for himself, and the need to equip ourselves with life skills, be it building relationships with people, be brave when facing our fears, and always, adapt to ever changing world.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

P.S. I was also told that the 2nd movie is the best - so I am looking forward to continue my Hunger Games journey soon! In the mean time, for those who had watched this movie more than a decade ago, let me know you think!