It may surprise you

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2013)

I didn't see this movie in theaters because of lack of interest. In all honesty, based on the trailer and hype, it just didn't seem to grab me and none of my friends really seemed interested either. Some of my favorite films in the action/fantasy genre include the original Star Wars films, Many super hero films such as the dark knight and iron man, the first two terminators, etc. so the Hunger Games didn't seem to be up my ally. Since then, I have come to learn that two of my closer friends were actually big fans of the first Hunger Games film. With the release of the second film coming this weekend, and with the convenience of the it's availability on netflix, I decided to watch the 2012 film last night.
I don't regret giving it a shot at all. I was very pleased with what I watched! First, I am going to talk about the negative aspects of the film in my opinion, just to get them out of the way. The pacing of the first hour is just a tad slow. Nothing painful, and it does make the later parts of the film all the more thrilling, but it does move just a teeny bit slower than needed. I wasn't particularly fond of Josh Hutcherson's performance. Also, the cgi within the last 20 minutes looked a little fake. Some of the make up on some of the characters were a little silly. They looked like they came right out of Ron Howard's 2000 film How the Grinch stole Christmas. But these characters don't have massive roles or anything, and it's a very minor complaint. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.
Now on to the good stuff. I fell in love with Jennifer Lawrence in this movie. She's a very good actress and is very attractive. She's my new celebrity crush. I really cared about the character she played, Katniss. This had to be at least 60% because of the gorgeous actress and maybe 40% because of the script. The fact that I cared so much about this Katniss was in peril, I very enthusiastically routed for her. The story was also interesting and fairly creative. I haven't read the book it's based on, so I can't say how it works as an adaptation or if it does great justice to the source material. As someone who knew very little about The Hunger Games going in however, I think they did a good job.
I touched on the performances a little bit. I mentioned that I though Jennifer Lawrence was perfect, and how I didn't care for Josh Hutcherson. As for the performances as a whole, I think the movie was pretty solid though. Woody Harrelson was probably the second best actor in the film and played one of the more memorable characters. Everyone else was serviceable for the film. While I said I thought the pacing of the first hour was a little slow (which was very slight), the remainder of the film flew by. I was glued to the screen. There was a surprising amount of violence. I was expecting the film to be on the lighter side of the pg-13 rating, while it was actually quite the opposite.
If the film took the violence any further, it would have easily gotten an R rating. I think this works very well for the film as it makes the world seem all the more realistic and dangerous, and makes the drama more effective. There are actual deaths in the film as well, which I didn't expect, which also added to this. If people die in this world, that also means that the main protagonist can die as well, which raises the stakes. There are also quite a few interesting twists and role reversals in the film that keep you invested.
Overall, if you are skeptical about this movie as I was, I recommend at least giving it a shot. If you get to the 80 minute mark, and are not satisfied, then you can turn it off, but I urge you to get at least that far before forming an opinion. I went into the movie expecting something targeted towards children around the ages 7-12, while in fact it seems to target a bit of an older crowd, probably between 12 and 18. It also managed to please me, a 21 year old. This movie was very entertaining, and I expect great things from the sequel.