After I saw the movie, my 13-year-old daughter asked me if I was “team Peeta or team Gale,” referring to the District 12 boy who is Katniss’s “star-crossed” lover in the Hunger Games arena and her hunky best pal back home. The question also evokes Twilight,” of course, which has gotten a lot of fan-girl mileage out of the competitive objectification of Jacob and Edward.
For the record I always thought Bella should ditch the pouty, sparkly bloodsucker and run with the wolves, though as a grown-up film critic I know I’m supposed to remain neutral. But I have to say that it did not occur to me, watching The Hunger Games,” to think very much about who Katniss’s boyfriend should be. She seemed to have more important things to worry about — and also, to bring it back to Leatherstocking and his kind, to be a fundamentally solitary kind of heroine.
—New York Times film critic A.O. Scott on what makes The Hunger Games movie (and book) different from Twilight.