It was nice

Rating: 9/10 (21 March 2012)

I wouldn't say the movie gave the full embodiment of the book. There were some scenes that I wish were still included like the part where Peeta and Katniss fight near the end that would have been quite nice as a follow-through for the second movie. Anyway, the movie fell short on quite a number of things:
1) Some scenes shifted way too fast - for me, seeing those transitions were a little disturbing but on the perspective of the filmmakers the burden of introducing the story to the non-readers is hard which is probably why they had to do it in that pace.
2) Action scenes felt fake - I guess this is what you can possibly work with when you only have a PG 13 rating. But I for one, found this annoying because one of the reasons I loved the books was how graphic Suzanne described the fight scenes. In the movie, in order to preserve the rating, they kept on muting the sound which was very irritating. They should consider increasing the rating next time although I doubt this is remotely possible.
But when there are downsides there are some great things about the movie:
1) Ms. Lawrence as Katniss - She was impeccable. I loved how she embodied the Katniss that we loved in the books. She was hot-headed, charming, and had the right mix of emotions to just emulate Katniss from the books.
2) Time lapse - there was no tension of being bored. The time just went on by, which for me is a great consideration in choosing awesome movies.
All these ups and downs of the movie made it awesome as it was. I could not give it a perfect no matter how long I've waited for the movie but the entirety of it was more than satisfactory. Hopefully, we will get more in November of 2013. See you again Tributes!