Fun for those who haven't read it and good enough for those who have

Rating: 5/10 (17 April 2012)

Having read all three of Suzanne Collins' fantastic novels, I was pumped for this film. And I was mostly not disappointed.
Obviously the premise of this movie is that 24 young people between the ages of 12 and 18 are placed into an arena to fight to the death. The Hunger Games, as these annual events are called, are there to act as a warning to the people of Panem, a nation in the ruin of what was once North America hundreds of years in the future. Panem is divided into 12 districts and the Capitol, which is ruled by the ruthless President Snow. Every year a boy and a girl is chosen from each district to compete in these 'Games.' The protagonist of this film is Katniss Everdeen, a teenager who comes from the poorest district, 12. She has to hunt illegally to provide for her little sister and mother in poverty and in constant danger of starvation. She is chosen to compete in the Hunger Games.
I adore the books, and the film was good, but not great. The plot was fine, as the filmmakers didn't make any big changes from the novel, and the acting was great, especially Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss. Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland and Lenny Kravitz round out the cast. All of them were great in it. The bad points of this were the shaky-cam direction style, the drawn-out feel of the 2 hour and 20 minute long running time and also the absence of a score in places which should have had music to make them more effective, e.g the choosing of the contestants. However, this lives up to my expectations and is a fun, exhilarating and interesting sci-fi action drama.