Did the book Justice

Rating: 10/10 (24 June 2012)

When I saw the first trailers for 'The Hunger Games' paid it no mind, especially after reading comments like the ones on this page stating it was 'Battle Royal with cheese' and 'like Twilight'. However, my wife after reading the books convinced me to do the same. As a 30 year old bloke I'm not ashamed to say the trilogy of books is outstanding, it is gripping, emotion filled, a riveting read from start to finish.
I finally got around to watching the film yesterday and after reading some of the criticisms here I felt compelled to address them.
1. Shaky cam: I've seen a few films where this technique is used to disastrous effect, the only point to it seems to be to make you feel sick. However, in The Hunger Games, the shaky cam is shot from eye level, often just behind the main characters head in a weird '3rd person' viewpoint that really, really works. I almost wept on a number of occasions as the emotions of the main characters hits you like a brick to the face. This is down to the amazing Directing skills of Gary Ross (I'll certainly be looking up more of his work).
2. 'It's just a rip off of Battle Royal': Please. Three prerequisites are required for anyone to come to this conclusion: i - You've watched Battle Royal ii - As it's a cult film, you feel smug and special because you've watched it and the 'idiot main stream audience' haven't. iii - You haven't bothered to watched 'The hunger games'.
Only on the internet, could this lazy opinion be allowed to propagate.
Seriously, saying "its like battle royal" because "kids are forced to fight to the death" in both? Oh great, well in that case Harry Potter is exactly the same as Buffy the Vampire Slayer because both "involve school kids fighting monsters with 'magic'". See, I can be intentionally misleading too. Granted, there are parallels that can be drawn between the two movies, well, one parallel, that's all in fact.
3. It's just another Twilight What? Because it supposedly involves a 'love triangle' between teenagers? Well, whoopdiedo, the internet guff is propagating again. Twilight is an awful movie, the direction is lazy, the plot is lazy, simple and dull, the only thing in the film is the love story. Though to be fair, there's not much you can do when you start with the premise 'Girl meets Vampire'. In contrast the love story in The Hunger Games barely registers, it's background, it's not what the film is about.
The only thing these two movies have in common is the amazing scenery and...OK, Joseph does look a bit like Gale.
4. It isn't true to the book. Yes it is, and where it deviates it does so for good reason, and it does so exceptionally well (either to simplify too-complex-for-screen issues, remove unnecessary characters, or to simply make the story better). This is the best book adaptation I have ever seen, and I include LotR in that.