Hunger Games Movies

Source: Wikipedia

Summary on Google for the first film: In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.

There are four movies in all for this franchise and I enjoyed everyone of them. This is also the first movie series which I have seen every movie made for it in theaters. Ironically I saw both the first Hunger Games movie and the last one with my mother. She is a moderate fan of the franchise while I'm all out. Got all three books in hardback which is not often for me (more so back when Hunger Games first came out) especially since I bought the first book locally and the prices for books have only continued to jump leaps and bounds in Jamaica. For a country that is working on increasing the literacy rate I frankly find this ludicrous. Which is why last year for the first time ever during a year of buying books that I never bought a single one locally. A travesty but I refuse to pay ridiculously high prices for books. When one tax increase takes a book series that usually cost $800 (Mortal Instruments) and it jumps to $1400 - $1650, I'm not buying it. No. Anyway back to writing about movies.

The Hunger Games follows in a long tradition of dystopian young adult but where it shines is in both amazing reading material with a stellar movie adaptation. Multiple adapted books have suffered via poor adaptations, e.g. Divergent series, but Hunger Games shone in it's own way with each movie. Our teen protagonist goes through various challenges as she tries to beat a sick game both in a challenge pitting kids to kill each other and in the 'real world' where she has to follow the word of a dictator to protect her family and later after rebelling trying to pull the pieces back together by becoming the Mockingjay. Katniss and the actress who plays her Jennifer Lawrence, shines on screen whether fighting for her life, having a quiet moment with Peeta, doing an interview at the Capitol or being the Mockingjay and a symbol of the rebellion. 

With the close of the last movie Mockingjay Part 2, I truly believe we have seen one of the best movie series come to amazing dramatic close. While some critics try to say the final movie was a failure because it did not beat the box office amount of the first, I highly disagree. First off the final movie still made leaps and bounds more in the young adult movie adaptation industry than most other movies with rare exceptions like the Harry Potter movie franchise. Which first off had twice as many movies and secondly a more rabid and open minded fan base. It really bothered me that one of the reasons cited for the lowest United States box office numbers was the lack of arenas with kids killing each other. Indeed some fans turned into the Capitol and refused to go because there was not more childhood carnage. Personally I find that very disturbing. Still I loved the political intrigue as well as deep story line and tragedy injected into the final film. It did not baby it's audience and I'm sure I'm not the only fan or movie goer who was satisfied with that. There were funny moments however like when Coin was mourning a certain 'death'. We the audience knew she was faking but she acted so convincingly that the theater filled with laughter. Talking about working a crowd and I'm also glad that the actress Julianne Moore will be in Kingsman 2 next year. 

At the end of the day I highly recommend all the movies in this franchise. Also I'm happy to say while not in production yet it has been said there is supposed to be a Haymitch movie in the future. From reading Catching Fire (second book and movie in the series) I wondered what Haymitch fighting back in his teenage years would look like and it's good to know that we might see that one day. Sadly yet again the claim came up that this was a good idea since fans wanted more arenas. Seriously? I guess the deep story line and evident message not to sacrifice children is not good enough but moving on. Thanks for stopping by and we're eight letters in guys! Woooh!