Slow and predictable

Rating: 4/10 (1 April 2012)

It goes unsaid that the book is almost always better than the film. This movie is unique in the fact that it is much worse than the book. I'm not a fan of the latest fad of teen literature to begin with, but being a science fiction fan and a lover of the movie Battle Royale, I had high hopes for this. The word "hype" doesn't even begin to summarize how much attention and praise this movie has received, and it definitely did not deliver. The lead actress was great and the idea of a bleak future landscape separated into districts to keep the population in check is a great story. But the film didn't tell that story well. We get only flashes of how or why this system game into place or what the "hunger games" purpose actually is. It was very slow, very predictable even if you hadn't read the book and had virtually no action. The fight scenes it did have were quick flashes that if combined total two or so minutes of the movie. And don't get me started on the awful CGI of the "killer dogs" at the end.