Movie falls far short of the book

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2012)

The movie falls far short of the book. It was good but not great. As with most first person narratives, the bulk of the story is told in the hero's head. Portraying the mood and the motivation of the hero on the screen without this internal dialogue is nearly impossible.
Katniss live a life without hope, she is defined by hunger and fear. Almost no one in district 12 is well fed and their lives are spent scrounging for food, staving off starvation one day at a time. Katniss is worse off than most because she has no father and her mother is a shell, destroyed by the death of her husband. It falls thus to Katniss to be provider for the family as well as surrogate mother to Prim. This is why Katniss hunts, the meager scraps she bring home helps keep the three of them alive.
Katniss' fear exists on many levels and is perhaps more pervasive than her hunger. She fears dying in the games of course and this fear increases each year that she is not chosen tribute as the odds increase each year that you will be chosen. She is doubly terrified this year because now Prim must join the lottery. Perhaps most of all she fears that if she is gone Prim and her mother will starve.
When Katniss volunteers as tribute she has no hope that she can win. In her own mind she is volunteering for her own execution. However, she cannot bear to lose Prim and this will exempt Prim from being chosen now and in the future. Her sacrifice is a truly epic moment that makes the story. Viewers completely miss the significance.
Read the Book!