The film has an interesting setting, style and succeeds with pacing, and characterization.

Rating: 7/10 (24 March 2012)

Unlike some veteran reviewers, I pretty much knew I was going to like The Hunger Games. This is mostly due to my own enjoyment of dystopian and post-apocalyptic settings in general media. But, to counter my own statement of enjoyment, I didn't know how much I would like this, my bar was set pretty low at 2.5, which is the minimal passing score for my rating scale. The reason behind this is behind few exceptions I hate the genre of fiction known as young adult. It's simplistic, pandering, insulting and cliché. It simply is and with writers like Stephanie Meyer this can not be dismissed as a radical bias as there is some truth to it. But I did pick up the Hunger Games novel about a month ago and I ended up being interested on how it was going to be adapted. Let me say this before I say anything else, I believe Jennifer Lawrence is a talent that can't be denied. Calling her talentless, unemotive, stale or any negative term is just objectively wrong. If you don't think so please do yourself a favor and go watch Winter's Bone and to a lesser extent, The Burning Plain or The Poker House. Both were movies that really got me excited for her as a performer. This girl has range, ability and method and while in The Hunger Games it doesn't show completely, she does show the characters three dimensions. The plot is paced very well, with minor inconsistences with camera steadiness, but it does add some thrilling action-esque feel to the scenes even if it sacrifices emotion and reaction. At the end of the day, I can agree with Catherine Reitman on Josh Hutcherson being miscast. I do think higher of him then others, but he just didn't fit or he didn't for me. I also think Wes Bentley just didn't stick either, in appearance I think it was great but when he opened his mouth it seemed dreaded with blandness. I imagined the character presented would of had a thinner, more suave voice and characterization. But otherwise it was only a minor thing that irked me. Everyone else but these two sank into their roles, especially Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks; whom I didn't even recognize until the ending credits.
The film has an interesting setting, style and succeeds with pacing, characterization and only falters when it comes to some blurps that can't be helped either due to casting or source material. This is probably the most finely crafted young adult thing I have experienced since maybe Brian Jacques adapted Redwall to the television screen.