Winter's bow

The Hunger Games

Crit

Well, that didn't suck, as I was afraid it might, given the unenthusiastic reviews. The first two acts, in fact, do quite a good job of translating the opening book of Suzanne Collins's megaselling young-adult dystopic trilogy. My daughter gave me the first book for Christmas, and while I wasn't surprised to like it (she knows me, after all), I was surprised to like it as much as I did, and to find the quality of the writing so strong. I actually intended to see the Imax film version, but I didn't have a chance on opening weekend, and this weekend it has been bumped from the suburban bigbigbig screen by (for the love of god, please, someone: career intervention for Liam Neeson, now!) Wrath of the Titans.

That's probably just as well, because it's the third act--the action-movie act--that is the least interesting and the draggiest, perhaps inevitably, given that it's the least original part of the story. But to make matters worse, in order to squeeze the novel into 142 minutes, they have to condense somewhere, and the first two acts contain little that is sacrificeable, so the last act manages to seem both overlong and rushed.

Jennifer Lawrence is hampered a bit by being a couple of years farther removed from Catniss Everdeen's 16 years than when she played a similar character in Winter's Bone, and she's unlikely to become less womanly over the years it'll take to get the next two books in the can. On the other hand, Stanley Tucci and Woody Harrelson have been auditioning for their roles for years, and Paula Malcomson (who will always be Trixie the whore to me) sells Mother Everdeen's blank passivity yet has the vital reserve that that character also requires.

Trailers

• What to Expect When You're Expecting--Oh, golly, this looks awful.
• The Amazing Spider-Man--Franchise reboot with Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone as Gwen, and--seriously?--Sally Field as Aunt May. Oh, villain? The Lizard.
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2--Whatevs.