Katniss Saves 'Hunger Games' as Director, Actress Fall Short: NYT
New York Times movie critic Manhola Darghis concludes in her review of 'The Hunger Games' film it is the Katniss Everdeen character, not the directing by Gary Ross nor Jennifer Lawrence's performance, that saves the movie.
The film, set to open in theaters across the U.S. on March 23, "hews dutifully close" to the book on which it's based, she notes.
"What finally saves the character and film both is the image of her on the run, moving relentlessly forward," she writes.
Ross is an "at times frustratingly ill-matched director," she writes. "It may be that Mr. Ross is too nice a guy for a hard case like Katniss."
She says the heroine "was created for rough stuff - for beating the odds and the state, for hunting squirrel and people both - far rougher than Mr. Ross often seems comfortable with."
She allows this could be his decision or a decision of behind-the-scenes executives.
Darghis calls Lawrence's performance "bland" and "disengaged." Her performance "rarely suggests the terrors Katniss faces, including the fatalism that originally hangs on her like a shroud."
