Don't listen to the haters...

Rating: 8/10 (27 March 2012)

I usually dislike movie adaptations of books I have read, but this was a pleasant surprise! A lot of fan reviews have been way too focused on every itty bitty detail that wasn't exactly like they pictured it- guess what, no movie will be. Yes, some actors don't look much like the characters they portray and some scenes didn't follow the book word for word. Overall, I thought they did a good job of capturing the spirit of the book. They put in as much detail as they could while maintaining a PG-13 rating. It wasn't overly graphic, but you still got the same feel of the original story. My only criticism is that because the book is so full of detail, the movie might feel a bit rushed if you haven't read the book first.
On a side note, for all the haters that say Suzanne Collins poorly plagiarized the Japanese novel, "Battle Royale," you need to read more. The basic plot of citizens in a dystopian society being forced to fight is NOT an original plot. The idea has been used in literature for years, most claiming Roman gladiator games as the inspiration. "Battle Royale" was not widely released in the US, so it isn't far-fetched that Collins said she had never heard of it until the comparisons started. It's like the man who sued Dan Brown over "The Da Vinci Code" because he wrote a book about 20 years earlier discussing the idea of the true nature of the Holy Grail. Those theories have been around for centuries (which Dan Brown noted in the book's preface). Why not claim that "Twilight" was a rip-off because it wasn't the first book about a human falling in love with a vampire? Broaden your horizons people!