A fantastic film

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2012)

I would have loved to give this film a 10/10, but unfortunately there were some crucial elements missing. However, I feel that lots of people are giving The Hunger Games a worse rating than it deserves because they expected it to be exactly like the book (which I've read and loved) when in reality there was no way they could have included everything that went on in the book unless they made a 6-hour or two-part film.
There were things missing such as Peeta's "Here to finish me off, sweetheart?" line and Madge's character was completely removed, meaning that Katniss got the Mockingjay pin from Greasy Sae instead of Madge like she did in the books (which gave the pin a lot less value and meaning).
Those things can be overlooked, however one thing that really got me was the lack of screen time that Rue (Amandla Stenberg) was given. I felt that I couldn't really connect with Rue when watching the film like I did when reading the books because you just don't see enough of her, and when she dies, although the scene is near perfection, the emotion doesn't hit you like it should because you just don't see her enough and get to connect with her. Altogether I feel that it was a fantastic film (if not a little too fast-paced) and they captured loads of aspects of the books brilliantly, and most of the things that were missed out can be overlooked if you appreciate the film for what it is.
Something that I wasn't expecting to happen when watching the film was how much I ended up liking Seneca Crane. He got more screen time than I thought he would, but Wes Bentley has something endearing about him that really made me love Seneca and I felt quite sad when he died - which shocked me more because I didn't really care when reading the books.
All the cast gave a fantastic performance, I'm not really going to single anyone out because they really were all fantastic.
8.5/10