Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen
However good an actress Jennifer Lawrence is, she just is not Katniss. Whether it was her doing or a choice on the directors, Lawrence just failed to capture Katniss’ crazy badassery. Instead, she’s just a normal person and reacts more like a normal person would: “Ahh! Stuff is happening!” But in the books, Katniss is kind of crazy. Sure, she gets worse over time, but she’s pretty kick ass and I just didn’t get that feeling in the movie.
Another part of that was that Lawrence is just too tall—in my mind, Katniss was petite and wild, in the sense that you almost think, “Napoleon Complex.” Lawrence lacked that fire, that angry energy. She seems almost meek, particularly in the interview when she talks about what she said to Prim: “I swore I would” became “I say I’d try.” Similar phrases and yet the difference between those them is huge.
Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark
Hutcherson was awesome! I have to say, after seeing Journey to the Center of the Earth, I had my doubts. Huge doubts. Peeta is my favorite character, and I was really worried. Did I mention that I was worried? But Hutcherson blew me away. I think he really captured Peeta’s sincerity and love for Katniss. And I think he had the right balance of being decently smart and good with being likeable, and yet he was kind of strangely naïve in other situations (like the berries).
One negative: there weren’t really enough scenes to really do Peeta’s character justice. Most of the cave scenes were cut. I just reread them and all I can say is—they are so much better in the books! Peeta is more gentle, tender, deliberate in the books, and there are more interactions between them. But I blame the editing more than the acting for that. My boyfriend criticized Peeta's portrayal, saying that in the books, he comes across as smarter and more able than he does in the movie.
Minor Characters
Gale—eh, not really enough scenes to do his character justice yet. On the whole, I thought the other tribute actors did a good job at playing their characters.The Haymitch and Effie scenes were perfect and provided the comic relief that they needed to.
Overall grade: okay. Some scene-stealers here and there, some underwhelming performances. Perhaps in some respects, anyone portraying Katniss would be disappointing, simply because we cannot get inside her head. On the other hand, other performances might seem better because, unlike Katniss, we weren't inside their heads in the book.
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Hungry for more about The Hunger Games? Check out the posts below!
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Hungry for more about The Hunger Games? Check out the posts below!
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