Monday 14 November 2011

"Hunger Games" looks like... a movie... I guess...

"Hunger Games" - which is basically a U.S./European version of "Battle Royale," which was in turn a Japanese-schoolchildren version of "The Running Man," which was in turn a Reaganomics-era "Rollerball" - now has a trailer, embedded below.

Pro-tip: You do NOT want to be eating or drinking anything around the 1:53 mark...



Seriously; what the FUCK is up with Wes Bentley's beard??

Okay, so I'm the LAST possible person who should be giving anything but the benefit of the doubt to adaptations of niche properties with fiercely-devoted fans; but while I'm sure the various flashes of characters, names, banners, logos, outfits, distinguishing-hairstyles etc. is all "ooh! it's _______!" for HG fans... I'm sorry, this looks pretty underwhelming as a movie. ::ducks::

I've not yet read the series myself, so I don't know whether to blame the material or filmmakers first for this. Are the descriptions of the "futuristic" society in the book ALSO as bland, cheap and "generic dystopia" as they appear here?

This is, of course, another adaptation greenlit largely because someone has mistaken a passionate online fanbase (which means deceptively-MASSIVE traffic numbers) for genuine overall interest... the books sell well, but not "Twilight" or "DaVinci Code" well. Sometimes that kind of thinking works out - in the greater-good "a great movie gets made" sense, certainly not in the financial sense - and we get a "Scott Pilgrim" or a "Watchmen" out of the deal. This does not (so far) look like one of those times.

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