Splendid.

Rating: 6/10 (25 March 2012)

I stumbled into my local Odeon outlet completely blind as to what to expect of 'The Hunger Games', as, having never read the books, I would have been. Only obtaining some minor information beforehand apart from The Guardian's review, I was prepared for anything.
What I got was a well executed blockbuster.
In a bit more depth, The Hunger Games was well acted and put together, unlike so many other films on the market today. The plot-line was heavily similar to Koushun Takami's 'Battle Royale', one of my all time favorite novels, however, until the day comes that it gets a GOOD film adaption, The Hunger Games makes a good substitute.
In order to keep the age limitations down to a minimum, it was obvious heavy camera shake was employed, although, in some circumstances it made me doubt the sobriety of the cameraman. Also, this focused the story more on survival and love elements, which were pulled off reasonably well. However, despite its 2:20 running time, I felt some characters were really just placed to die, and I found I didn't care for them due to lack of character development. I reckon The Hunger Games would probably benefit more from a mini-series, but as I said, all round, It was all very slick.