An entertaining film which (I'm sure) will be a hit

Rating: 8/10 (31 March 2012)

This is a very well made film with some nice CGI in places, although I did feel it was a little over-used in a couple of scenes. There are so many similarities (in part) to other films it's hard to know where to start. I guess 'Battle Royalle' is a pretty good start, although I could see influences from; 'The Truman Show', 'Rollerball' (the original one) and 'The Running Man' in there too. I did get the impression that there is a lot more explained in the book than there was time for on the screen because I did feel I had missed out on a few plot points here and there. These particularly surrounded the relationship between Katniss and Peeta; I won't discuss it here as I don't want to go putting down spoilers. Over all though, the 142 minute running time seemed to pass quite quickly (always a good sign) and so I'm happy to deem this one Recommended.
My score: 8.2/10.
IMDb Score: 7.8/10 (based on 56,220 votes when this review was written).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 85/100 (based on 239 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 87/100 (based on 84,278 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.