Appetite for destruction

The Hunger Games movie, based on the trilogy by Suzanne Collins, steals from the best, and also from the worst, and still comes out looking like a modern teen survival classic, today’s answer to The Lord of the Flies. Except instead of William Golding’s classic about marooned schoolboys who devolve into tribal alliances to survive, this one pits lottery-selected teens against each other in a state-sponsored televised death match.

It could be either very bleak or very cheesy, but one of the main reasons it works is Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, a standout kick-ass backwoods femme in a year of kick-ass cinematic femmes. Lawrence plays it almost as an extension of her Oscar-nominated smart, tough character in Winter’s Bone (it’s as though no one told her this is just a mindless summer movie, she plays it so straight), but here, instead of fleeing meth dealers in a woodsy environment, she’s fleeing gangs of murderous teens who want to eliminate her from the competition in a woodsy environment. Fortunately, she’s very good with a bow and arrow.

Love team?: Lawrence and and Josh Hutcherson try to stay alive.

A little background: it’s the future, bombs have dropped, society’s broken down and people have to submit to an all-powerful martial law-type leadership called The Capitol. For entertainment, and to appease what seem to be alien overseers, they demand the ritual sacrifice of one boy and one girl from each of 12 Districts every year. These 24 are trained, their skills assessed, then they are dumped in a remote setting and told to kill or be killed. 

Yes, it does sound a lot like Battle Royale, that dark Japanese satire about what happens to misbehaving miscreants in school uniforms dumped on a remote island. It sounds a bit like Lord of the Flies too, and even has shades of Shirley Jackson’s creepy short story “The Lottery.” (In that one, a small town holds a yearly lottery in which everyone grimly participates, because it’s “the way”; the winner gets stoned to death. That scene is echoed in the opening lottery sequence of Hunger Games.)

But wait! There are also hints of The Road (those grim shots of post-apocalyptic America), Logan’s Run (a futuristic society where those who reach age 21 are put to death), Woody Allen’s Sleeper (in the retro-future white uniforms of the cops) and even (gulp!) TV shows like Survivor and American Idol.

The Survivor peg comes as trainer Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) explains to Katniss and her District 12 counterpart Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) that the only way to survive is “to get people to like you.” As we know, those who don’t get along well on Survivor are voted off the island. The Hunger Games are actually broadcast live to surviving humans who live in a strangely decadent futuristic society of day-glo hairstyles and Marie Antoinette bouffants. Chief among them is Stanley Tucci, playing Hunger Games TV host Caesar Flickerman, the kind of gig Ryan Seacrest would probably land if they froze his head and reanimated him in the future.

Tucci is way over the top here, with his blue hair and false teeth, calling the contestants one by one to the stage before the big kill-off. You almost expect him to ask viewers to text their votes in at the end of the show. He almost derails the more serious work done by Lawrence and Harrelson.

Stanley Tucci is over the top as TV host Caesar Flickerman.

But when the movie tracks Lawrence and her survival skills out in the woods, it’s pure magic. She’s got a steely determination that’s riveting, even in a huge-budget franchise film. Seeing her command the judges’ attention by skewering the apple in a lechon’s mouth with her bow and arrow is worth the price of admission alone.

She’s so good with a bow and arrow (and sassy to boot) that the judges give her an “11” before the games begin. This does not sit well with other contestants, who know they can only win if they throw their strongest rival under a bus — literally. Gang alliances form and, in one memorable scene, Katniss escapes being cornered up a tree by cutting loose a nest of genetically-engineered wasps whose stings cause searing pain and powerful, mind-altering hallucinations. Unfortunately, she herself gets stung. Definitely not a good place to be tripping.

Like her character in Winter’s Bone, Katniss is a survivor, but one with heart. She volunteers to take her kid sister’s place in the Games, and pairs up with a little tyke during the action named Rue (Amandia Stenberg). When she first arrives at Capitol City, she’s a bit rough around the edges; no less than Lenny Kravitz is on hand to give Katniss a warrior makeover, and soon she’s parading before the judges on horseback, her back a silhouette of flame. Fierce.

Along the way, Katniss’ gift for survival makes her a natural TV star (shades of Ed TV or The Truman Show, or any reality TV show, really), and her growing sense of self-identity stirs up rebellious pride among her fellow District 12 dwellers, who start tearing things up.

Director Gary Ross keeps the action moving along, doing away with too much social analysis because, after all, you’ve seen this set-up a million times already. According to Hunger Games author Collins, her inspiration goes all the way back to the Greeks — the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur — though it’s pretty hard to spot beneath all the big-budget trappings here. Look instead for a slick blockbuster that’s a few notches above your average dystopian teen flick, with an eye-catching, butt-kicking turn from Ms. Lawrence. You won’t be disappointed.