Saturday, May 12, 2012

The Hunger Games

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, & Alexander Ludwig
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

The Hunger Games was everything I expected, but not more than that. I am a huge fan of the series, having read all the books months ago, but I've avoided the movie until all the hype died down, so that I could give an honest opinion, and here it is. The film was terrific, one of the best adaptation of a book I've read. Jennifer Lawrence was absolutely perfect as Katniss and if she doesn't get a ton of awards for the role, there is no justice in Hollywood. That's the good news, however the movie was far from perfect. Friends who went with me and had never read the books, found it to be slow, and didn't understand certain things. At times, I could see their point. Several major things were rushed or just left out of the film. This led to some confusion, and then there's Peeta. I love Josh Hutcherson and thought he was terrific, but the portrayal of Peeta wasn't accurate. He was nowhere near as likeable as he is in the books and he comes off looking like kind of a pussy. The end of the games was also problematic, as they changed a key point that I thought was pivotal going into Catching Fire. It will be interesting to see what they do to fix that before the next film. Overall I loved the movie and thought it was awesome, but if you didn't read the books, you might be a little confused by parts of it and see it as slow. Parts of the film that dragged on were explained through thoughts in Katniss's head during the book. Without knowing what was going on at those points, I could see how some audience members may have been bored with it. The movie and especially the books live up to all the hype and are well worth your time, The Hunger Games is something you are not going to want to miss.

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