Unmoving

Rating: 3/10 (10 August 2013)

The Hunger Games is a film about a dystopian society where the rich and powerful District One (victors in a world war) force kids from the poorer conquered districts into competing in the Hunger Games, where they must hunt and kill their fellow competitors until one remains. It is based on a book of the same name.
This is an idea that has been explored in various literature and films - most notably in the preceding Japanese film (and book) Battle Royale.
I happened to have read the book a week before seeing the film for the first time. The film's story follows the book exactly and that is it's biggest downfall. This results in the first hour of the film being simply exposition - it is slow and stealing time from what should have been the best part of the film - that is the games.
Which brings me to the biggest factor that ruined this movie is the PG-13 rating. The subject matter is about death and ultra-violence and it is artistically ridiculous that the producers go for this rating. There is nothing shocking about the violence and that should be the main emotional impact. Though obviously they have been very successful in grabbing a whole mountain of money for this franchise.
Despite a lot of exposition time, big problem with the movie (and the book for that matter) is the lack of character development from anyone other than the three or four main characters. There are 24 competitors, but we only really see two. People die, but you just don't care.
This is definitely one to go straight to the book for. And then, read Battle Royale because that's twice as good! I'm looking forward to seeing the Battle Royale movie one of these days.