Talk about a over-hyped movie

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2012)

This is a pretty bad movie, I just don't get the really positive reviews this movie has been getting. So this movie has been getting a lot of hype for a while and thus I was expecting a really immersible and engaging movie, this is just not it at all. I enjoy watch premises like this although it has been done before and in this case it has been done much better than this. The movies that comes to mind is "Battle Royale" and "The Running Man". "Battle Royale" has done a better job with this type of premise and made it engaging although it can be startling at times. And although it had way more students having to play the life or death game, most of them stood out to some degree. And it focused on all the different students while having very few main protagonist the story revolved around and it still worked. This time there is like 24 students playing the game and none of them stands out except maybe 2. The movie focuses on two characters in the game but after a while they just come off bland and boring after a while. I don't get why they would have 24 people playing if hardly any of them stand out at all. There is also obvious plot holes in this movie as well. So in this there is couple of Districts going from rich to poor, while the rich district look futuristic and very retro the poor districts looks like the people are living in the 1930's. With all the hype this has been getting I didn't expect a teenage romance movie but that element is a big part of this movie. I should have caught one when bunch of 12 yr old girls were at the bookstore looking for this book and being really into it. So there is 24 teens fighting for there lives but you don't care about any of them, there is almost no character development so if one dies there is no attachment. Jennifer Lawrence was pretty good as Katniss and Woody Harrelson stood out but that is about it. The theater was packed but a lot of the audiences was yawning and I heard one of them say "this movie sucks". The romantic parts are drastic and super corny to the point even the girls were giggling and laughing. And not because the movie was trying to be humorous but the some of the audiences was laughing at how corny the movie is. This movie just lacked excitement. What was really disappointing is the main event where the teens has to fight each other to live. But that was the most boring part of this movie, the beginning when the teens get selected and the training is more entertaining than when the actual game begins. So the build up for the main game is drawn out for a long time but the build up leads to disappointment cause it just isn't that entertaining. The cinematography is choppy just so they can show the violence off screen sometimes since this is a movie for wider audiences. I can sort of see the direction this was wanting to go but it just didn't get there. This might have worked better as a TV show with maybe 6 episodes for better development maybe. I haven't read any of the books in this series and this movie slightly made me want to read it. Since it's been getting a lot of hype and the movie just wasn't that good, thus the book might be better. And this might be a poor transition from book to movie. Elizabeth Banks is also in this and she plays Effie, I don't don't know how that character is in the novel but she was pretty good in this and when I first saw the movie I couldn't recognize her.
5/10