movie: The Hunger Games

Ah, The Hunger Games. I finally got to see it. I am a patient movie watcher, no? yes.

Description from IMDB: “Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.”

I read the book, which might make a difference as to how much I ended up liking the movie. I heard from a few people that they didn’t like the movie. They did not read the book, nor were they the target audience for a YA title book.

Ok, so what I thought of it…

The filming was stark, especially at the beginning. There’s a bit of a bouncy camcorder feel, which wasn’t overly annoying and seemed to settle down after a while.

The story was reasonably faithful to the book, but it did deviate in a few ways.  The essence was still there. The characters were pretty much the same. The acting was fine and dandy.

As with the book, getting to the action takes a while.  Before the actual game, there’s some juicy sci-fi stuff, scenery, weird looking people and clothes, floating trains. Violence was present but not overly graphic, well, except for one particular part.

Like I said before, I heard a few complaints that the movie sucked. However, I thought it was good. You wouldn't necessarily need to read the book to appreciate it. The Hunger Games gets an A-.