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Archive for March, 2012

Who would have guessed this movie was based on a book by Edward Rice Burroughs? I had never heard of “The Pricess from Mars,’ much less read it. My guess is that the movie did not make production is due to the unfamiliarity with the content. Just because Disney puts a stamp on it doesn’t mean it will make billions. Nonetheless, a watchable movie, reminiscent of some of the Starwars episodes.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), is a 16 year old girl living in District 12, the poorest district of Panem, a futuristic country lying in the remains of the United States. Long ago there were 13 districts, but the districts grew angry in their poverty at the wealth that the capitol of Panem had. They waged war, but the Capitol responded with a brutal nuclear attack, destroying District 13 and rendering the other districts helpless. The capitol established an annual event in remembrance of the war called the Hunger Games, a brutal series of events that reminds the districts that they are at the capitols every whim.

The Hunger games consist of a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 being selected from each district and shipped off to the capitol in a process called the reaping, where they are then beautified, fattened up and interviewed before being dropped into an arena with each other. They are told that the last person alive is the “winner” and leave them there. The kids fight it out to the death while all of Panem watches on national TV. This year will be the 74th Hunger Games. We are taken to a house.

A young girl is comforted by an older sister.  She has reached the age to be selected in the reaping.  The older sister, Katniss goes out, slips by a fence and enters a bush.  She recovers a hidden bow and hunts a deer.  A young man interrupts, they are friends and talk about the reaping and the games.  They wish they can live outside the fence. We learn that this is Gale, and while Katniss seems to have plans to make a life with him, she doesn’t want children, because she is afraid they will end up in the games.

Katniss takes her kill to the Hob, the underground market where she can sell the meat she sells illegally. Here, she finds a little trinket; a mockingjay pin. Mockingjays are a hybrid of a mocking bird and a jabberjay; a muttation used by the Capitol in the war on the districts, able to record people’s whole conversations inconspicuously, before sending them back to the Capitol. The plan to use the jabberjays backfired, however, when the rebel forces learned to use them too, and ever since the mockingjay has been a symbol of rebellion to the capitol.

On her return home Katniss cleans up and puts on a dress. She bends to her little sister, who we learn is Prim, and hands her the pin. Prim is afraid she’ll be chosen as the tribute as this is her first year being entered. Katniss tells her that as long as she has the pin, nothing will happen to her. Soon all the teens in District 12, a humble mining area, are assembled in the town square.  A gaudily dressed woman, Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) reaches into a bowl and reads out the slipfor the female tribute, it is Primrose Everdeen.  As the guards take Prim to the stage, Katniss jumps out and volunteers, taking her sister’s place in the Games.  Everyone is stunned but Katniss walks stoically to the stage, ignoring her sisters screams.

When Effie asks for a round of applause for the volunteer, the district stays silent, and instead touches their pinky finger to their thumbs on their left hands, then kiss the hand and hold it out to her. it is an old symbol of unity and rebellion against the Capitol. Katniss Returns the symbolic gesture honoring her sacrifice. A male is also chosen, Peeta Mellark. When he enters the stage, Katniss has a flashback of a terrible storm and sitting in the rain, starving, when Peeta is sent out of his father’s bakery for burning bread. In the rain, he is supposed to throw the burnt loaves to the pigs, but instead he throws them to Katniss. Together, Katniss and Peeta are this year’s  District 12 tributes.

The tributes are whisked away on a high speed bullet train.  On board they have rich food and treats. Katniss and Peeta are in utter disgust at the luxury given to a simple train in the Capitol while they starved for every meal. Peeta is anxious to meet their mentor, Haymitch.  Haymitch is a pessimistic drunk, having won his hunger games by pure luck. He continues to drink and flatter Peeta while pissing Katniss off, if only to get the gist of her. Arriving in a gleaming modern city by the Rockies, the train is greeted by cheering residents.  Peeta waves back as Haymitch has told them they need to make friends. Katniss pouts and refuses to go to the window, sickened by the fact that they will soon see her die. As District 12, they get the penthouse in the Tribute  building.  

Katniss mets her stylist Cinna (Lenny Kravitz)  who promises to come up with a great costume for the gala entry parade. Katniss likes him because he is realistic and down to earth, something that most Capitol people are not. At the gala the tributes enter a stadium riding chariots, dressed in costumes reflecting the trade of their district.  Katnis and Peeta enter last dressed in black with artificial fire streaming behind, symbolising coal burning (coal mining being the trade of District 12). As Cinna promised, they definitely make an impression on the Capitol.

The tributes undergo some basic weapons and combat training with knives, swords and bows.  Another tribute, Cato, is imposing, hot headed and clearly a threat. Peeta is being bullied by the other tributes, so at Katniss’ suggestion he throws a large weight across the room, to get some respect around the place. Later, each tribute has to show off before the game makers.  Katniss misses with her first arrow and loses the small amount of the game makers attention she had, and despite her next shot being perfect, does not regain .  She bullseyes next , but has already lost their attention.  Sickened by the Capitols attitude towards the tributes, she shoots an arrow directly into their little cove and pin the apple out of their pigs mouth, sarcastically thanking them for their attention.

President Snow (Donald Sutherland)  hears of the incident and warns the Head Game Maker Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) to keep control.  When the scores for the training come on TV, Peeta scores a 7 out of 12, and Katniss scores an 11. This is unheard of, and her formerly mad escorts applaud her for her attitude. Later each tribute is introduced on TV,  the unctuous host Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) making small talk. Katniss amanges to scrape by with being a martyr and a sweet little girl, but Peeta just eats the audience up, getting them to laugh and go crazy when he announces his love for Katniss. Katniss is unbelievably pissed, thinking of it as a ploy for sponsors in the Arena or a way to make her feel guilty for taking his bread when she was younger.

Haymitch starts to give Katniss his full attention, realizing she has a chance to win it on skill, not on personality.  He warns her to avoid the bloodbath at the beginning and find water instead. Finally the day arrives, the tributes are raised into a meadow surrounding the cornucopia of weapons and packs.  After the horn sounds the tributes rush in,  Katniss grabs a pack and makes an escape, barely escaping Clove, the district four tribute, who embeds a throwing knife in her backpack.  Thirteen tributes are killed in the bloodbath.

Katniss rope in her pack and an empty canteen. She finds a stream and drinks.That night she climbs a tree and ties herself in.  While exploring the next day the limits of the game area the controllers start a fire to drive her back, Katniss manages to escape the fire but receives a bad gash on her thigh.  Then she is spotted by Cato and 4 other tributes who have made the “Career” team. We learn that Careers are the kids who start illegally training for the hunger games when the are younger, then volunteering at the age of 18 and cleaning up the game.Districts 1, 2 and 4 always have Careers to go for them. They chase her but she again climbs a tree to escape.  Peeta has joined the Career group. The five decide to wait her out.  Haymitch sends Katniss a parachute with a tin of burncream for her wound.  During the night Katniss notices Rue, a twelve year old tribute in the tree nearby, pointing at a large trackerjacker nest. Trackerjackers, we are told, are another type of muttation made by the Capitol; a type of wasp, but with venom ten times stringer, which can be fatal in most circumstances. Katniss climbs farther up the tree and starts sawing the branch with the wasps nest on it. She is stung but the nest falls onto the Careers sleeping below. They scatter in pain but Glimmer, the tribute from district 1, is bitten too often and dies.  The stings daze Katniss, but she is able to grab the bow and make a run for it, after Peeta gives her a loud and very obvious warning.

Katniss awakes two days  later, Rue has looked after her.  The two girls team up and decide to go on the offensive.  While Rue creates a diversion with fire and smoke, Katniss nears the Career’s stockpile of food and weapons. She notices the pile is surrounded by mines, using a well placed arrow she releases some apples, which roll onto the mines and blow up the lot. Cato comes back and breaks the boys neck who created the system in one swift motion, his anger making him murderous. Going back to find Rue, Katniss hears her call for help, and finds her ensnared in a net. Just as Katniss cuts her free, a teen with a spear attacks. Katnis kills him but the spear gets Rue in the chest. Katniss sings Rue to sleep, where she dies peacefully, then gathers several flowers and lay them about her, making Rue a part of the earth before she is taken back to her district.

We are taken to District 11, Rue’s home, where her father stands in the crowd watching his baby die. At only 12, she experienced the hell reserved for the very worst. Her father rampages, throwing cartons of grain everywhere, and soon his district rebels with him. Who is the Capitol to say whether his baby can live or die? And now she’s dead, just a pawn in their games, teir sick, twisted hunger games. As Katniss makes her gesture of peace and rebellion to the camera, the Peace Keepers in District 11 round up the rebels, shooting Rue’s father dead.

President Snow is enraged at the rebellion in District 11 and wants to arrange the circumstances of the game to kill Katniss. Haymitch pleads with Seneca and manages to convince him to save her, convincing him that instead, the Capitol would love some teen romance. He goes onto the speaker into the arena and makes an announcement: If the game comes down to two tributes, and they are from the same district, then they will both be crowned winners, and will both return home as victors.

Katniss sets out in search for Peeta, overhearing the Careers saying they left him for dead by the river. She finds a trail of blood and follows it to the last drop, fearing for Peeta’s death. Katniss finds a badly wounded Peeta, who has managed to camoflauge himself into a rock, and helps him to a cave. Katniss tries to treat Peeta, but realizes that he has blood poisoning, and that all will be lost unless she gets a special medicine, which would be way too expensive for Haymitch to send her at this point in the game. As if by magic, an announcement is made stating that there will be a feast at the cornucopia, but instead of food, each tribute will be given something that they desperately need.

Katniss waits until Peeta is asleep, then sets out for the cornucopia, hoping to get the life-saving medicine. When she gets there, Foxface, the girl from district 5, has already sprinted out and grabbed hers, catching the remaining tributes by surprise with her speed. Katniss decides un utilizing the same strategy, sprinting out and grabbing her pack quickly. She is stunned and thrown to the ground by a throwing knife, which is quickly followed by Clove, Catos’s district partner. They fight, but Clove gains the upper hand, holding a knife to Katniss’s throat and teasing her with bloodlust about allying with Rrue, the pathetic lilttle monster from District 11. As she is about to slit Katniss’s throat, she is lifted off of her. katniss looks up in surprise to see Thresh, the remaining district 11 tribute holding Clove to the metal of the cornucopia. He tells Katniss that she gets this one chance, because she helped Rue, but after that it’s fair game. He smashes Clove to death on the cornucopia wall.

Katnis returns to the cave, the pack has the medicine, which also doubles as a general cut healer.In a romantic moment, the two spread it on their wounds and fall asleep in each others arms. The next day they split up to forage for food, Peeta to collect berries and Katniss to hunt. Katniss hears a cannon go off, the signal for a death, and panics, sprinting back to the site they split up at. Peeta is there, looking at a pile of berries in bewilderedness. Katniss sees the corpse of foxface lying a few meters away and slaps Peeta while crying, telling him that the berries were nightlock, a very poisonous variant on blueberries. She collects some and says that maybe Cato will fall for the same trap Foxface did. They start hiking through the woods, but notice in fright that the mid-day sun is dissappearing, turning the arena into night.

They freeze in panic at a sound in the woods, tensed and ready for attack. In the distance, they hear Thresh scream, and his cannon goes off, signaling his death. They stand in shock for a moment before a huge muttation of a dog leaps out at them, the size of a polar bear and with much more speed and agility. They are chased to the cornucopia, Peeta helps and Katniss up on top and barely makes it up himself, gaining some huge gashes on his legs. They both sit back in relief, thinking that the mutts will kill Cato and hey will be crowned the victors.

Cato, however, is also on the cornucopia, hiding and waiting for them. He attacks Katniss, trying to throw her off to the mutts, but Peeta throws himself at him. Cato grabs Peeta, putting him in a choke hold near the edge. Katniss now has an arrow pointed him, and it is a stand-off. Cato is dripping blood from bad wounds inflicted on him by the beasts. He laughes a sadistic laugh as he tells Katniss he now knows what the games are for, that they are merely a weapon to make death, unneccesary, painful death. He is still choking Peeta, who seems to be telling Katniss something, despite his choking.

Cato continues on, telling Katniss that if she shoots, lover-boy will go down with her. Finally, Katniss gets Peeta’s message, and shoots an arrow directly into Cato’s hand. He screams in pain and Peeta throws him off, down to the mutts below. Katniss ends him with an arrow, and the mutts disperse. Peeta and Katniss hug, excited that the games are over. They wait for the hovercraft to retrieve them , but none comes.

A voice comes on telling the ‘victors’ that the earlier rule about two winners being allowed has been revoked. We see Katniss think about shooting Peeta for a moment, but throw her bow down instead. Peeta raises his arms, begging her to shoot him, saying he wants to die for her. Instead, she removes the berries from her bag and pours some into his hands, telling him that the Capitol would rather have 2 victors than none. As they are about to swallow the berries, the voice comes on again, pleading with them to stop. They are both the victors.

Haymitch tells them how foolish they were to show up the Capitol like that, and tells them to play up the lovesick teenagers angle in their closing interview. They oblige, but Haymitch tells them it will never be enough.

Seneca Crane is led into a finely polished marble room. the door is locked behind him. We see, on the only table in the very center of the room, a fine goblet filled with night lock, indicating his self-execution.

And so ends the movie (2 hrs 22 min) as well as book 1. The Hunger Games makes you hungry for the next two installments. With all the movies being based on book trilogies, etc., (e.g., Twilight series, The Lord of the Rings, The Bourne series, etc.) it is an absolute shame that the Anne Rice vampire films were such “B” movies even though they had higly rated stars. Maybe they should be re-screen-played and filmed with the newer technologies. Even her Mayfair witches would make good movie fodder in today’s world of vampires, werewolves, and other assorted creatues. And so I digress.

The Hunger Games was totally enjoyable. It perhaps could have been shortened a little, but we are well set for the forthcoming episodes. Very well done without a heroine always glaring with a doe-eyed, Stepford wife, look (e.g., Bella from Twilight – we can only hope her new hunger for blood will make her a less docile and mindless character).

Rating: 4.5 out of 5