A good effort, but still disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2012)

Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone who worked on this thing. It was good. I won't deny that. But it wasn't the best.
The books are quite difficult to adapt, so you have to commend Gary Ross for trying. When you read the Hunger Games, it is like Katniss is speaking to you, running through everything she experiences for you. That's quite difficult to do in a movie-you can't REALLY have Katniss talking through the whole thing.
I have to say, if I hadn't read the books, I probably would not have understood it as well. The story is more shown than explained. Yes, you find out the reasoning behind The Hunger Games, but it is never elaborated.
The relationships between characters aren't as strong as they could be. The important ones, like Rue and Prim needed a lot more attention than they were given, in order to understand how upsetting it was. Also, Peeta isn't as much of a kind-hearted in-love person in the movie as he is in the books. And Haymitch was NOT as drunk and crazy as he should have been.
I think that rather than spending time on the Gamemakers, they should have developed these characters more.Because if the basic story is not all there, then adding more is useless. I wouldn't have minded if this movie had run for 4 hours-if they had gotten the characters spot on.
The shaky camera thing was annoying too...
One more thing-I think the chariot costumes were a bit underrated-I was expecting something bigger, bolder and flashier than that.
There were positive points in this movie though. I believe the reaping scene was perfect and so were the outfits and acting in the interviews. Katniss was done beautifully by Jennifer Lawrence-she was BRILLIANT!
Overall, quite good, but lacking those details that could have made it so good. You should watch though! But read the books first!