Have any of you ever seen the movie
Battle Royale? This was a Japanese movie filmed in
2000 by director Kinji Fukasaku based on a very popular novel.
To summarize, in the near future, the Japanese government takes the
lowest rated school of
ninth-graders (i.e. having the most delinquents), ships them to an island and lets them fight... to the
death! It was amazing!
It was epic and intense and kept you guessing at every turn. The
characters were interesting and it was just a good overall film.
Check out the trailer here:
On a side note, I wasn't as impressed
with the sequel (Battle Royale 2).
But, I live in America, where we can't
seem to come up with anything original or unique. So we rip off
other peoples ideas and call it our own. And it seems most Americans
are so desperate for entertainment, moviegoers will support anything
Hollywood shoves down our throats hard enough.
Today's case in point: Hunger
Games.
Hunger Games is based on a novel, where people in the future select children from ages 12 to 18 from each of the twelve districts to fight in the annual Hunger Games competition... to the death! Does any of this sound familiar?
Check out the trailer here and tell me
which version of bloodthirsty children killing each other do you prefer, Japanese or American?
I had so many problems with this movie,
I don't even know where to begin. But because I feel writing is so
important to a movie, let's start there.
Call me silly, but I sort of like to be
surprised or maybe kept guessing when I watch a movie. “What
will happen next???” “Will they be okay???” “How will they
get out of this???” After seeing this movie, I'm thinking about
playing the lottery, because it really made me feel psychic!
Somehow, (perhaps magically), I was able to predict nearly every
twist and turn, even though the writing makes no sense!
Now in defense of Hunger Games,
I have never read the original novel. Generally, American movies
based on novels tend to be very loosely based, so there might
be something with a bit more substance on the written page that never
got conveyed. For example, why doesn't every town riot when their
children are taken away to be killed? And this has been happening
peacefully for seventy-four years? Or how can any 12 year old little
girl expect to defeat an 18 year old boy in a death match? Or how
can you realistically train children to become brutal killers in the
space of three days? And beyond that, there is an endless stream of
horrible cliche moments.
But let's just say for a moment, I can
somehow ignore the aneurism the bad writing gave me, and let's
examine the characters. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss
Everdeen, and while she is not as horrendous to watch as Kristen Stewart
(from Twilight), she is still extremely bland.
Speaking of Twilight, of course there is a love
interest! Josh Hutcherson plays Peeta. In terms of a
love story, this one drifts somewhere between meh and
forced. It's a half tic above Twilight. In other words, I don't hate the characters that
much.
The rest of the cast got a paycheck.
And for the record, I'm really starting to think Woody Harrelson is
stalking me.
Then finally, we have director Gary
Ross, putting the shaky cam icing on the top of a very bland cake.
Rotten Tomatoes
gave this movie an 84%, and there are a few sequels in the works.
Did I see a different movie than the rest of the country??? Can
someone please tell me why this is so popular??? I'm not saying
it's the worst movie I've ever seen, (that award is still held by
Twilight
and the George
Clooney Batman and Robin), but this filled
me with lots of WTF's.
So please, stop promoting movies with
this kind of blah, and start supporting good writing, like Limitless,
or Avengers, or Doctor Who,
or Looper, or Zombieland,...
Or even Sharknado!
Deeesher
