Didn't know about the book until the movie...

Rating: 4/10 (26 March 2012)

Hello, First off you have to take into account that before seeing this movie I didn't even know it was based on a book. So definitely I went in the theater with an open mind, being most of all attracted by the title.
Well, almost two and a half hours later I came out of said theater mostly disappointed. And here's why...
Let me first start with the good: I thought that some of the characters did do their job well, building on that sense that this futuristic society is of an Orwellian nature, creating repulsing characters, easily hate-able. In my opinion a negative character is well played by the actor when you, as audience would like to personally end their lives. And I felt this way with a lot of the characters in the movie - the show host, the recruiting lady, the show producer. On the other hand I didn't feel as sympathetic with the good guys in the movie, mostly - like someone before me showed - because they lacked depth. I did not feel their struggle was real enough. Furthermore I really enjoyed the costumes, makeup, overall sets. But that was about it.
I felt the movie had so many plot holes and inconsistencies I don't know where to start from. Firstly I didn't feel the "hunger" that haunted the characters in the movie. IMHO they felt pretty well fed. Someone being in a constant state of hunger could not easily overlook the abundance of food found in the train - just as the two tributes were leaving the village. A hungry person would surely dig in, even more so if they were about to die soon. I mean, what is there else to do? But that's just a small point. I didn't fully understand how the society works. Sure, there were some sort of guards in white uniforms, but it seemed that they carried no weapons of any sort. How was such an oppressive society enforcing its power. I mean I come from an oppressive society and even with all the fear and guns, people still rebelled because, well mostly, they were hungry - and the society won. So I must ask myself why did people so easily comply with this oppressive regime? There were no questions asked about the way that society worked. And I have one point I'd like to raise, mostly because I did not read the books.. did the fact that these games existed mean that there were no other crimes in that country? Because if so, then it would be a small price to pay for overall peace and safety.
Furthermore, if some of the resident were trained for this type of thing, why didn't everybody do it. I mean the guy who was in the urn 42 times, he knew his odds were high - why didn't he train in the art of survival all year long? And another question: these games only lasted for 4-5 days - what happened in the rest of the year?
And... if they were able to create all these elements in the game - at first I thought it was VR but then I saw they were real, if this sort of technology existed why wasn't it used to create food - since this was apparently the issue in that world.
What happened to the people rebelling in the 11th district? They seemed pretty successful at first.
If the games were rigged - and they were, and everybody could see that, why did the people still go there. I mean if I were in that position I'd rather die from the beginning then be someone's toy to throw around. I mean clearly the games were not fair. People should have rebelled seeing that the rules changed as the game progressed.
And now back to some more dedicated points: if the people trying to kill Katniss were trained soldiers - sort of, why did all of them go to sleep, under a BIG wasp nest without having guards for every two hours or so, thus preventing what happened later on.
Also, when you plant mines in a perimeter to defend a bunch of stuff, that stuff would no way in hell blow up if one of the mines was tripped. It just doesn't make sense.
Also, Katniss, after she got the bow, with her skills could easily do a divide et impera and slowly kill each adversaries form a distance.
I think I went on for too long, and maybe sometimes it didn't make sense, but I have to say I was less than impressed overall. But who's to say, maybe I don't see things straight.
Andrei