Maybe fun for fans of the book...but not worth it otherwise

Rating: 3/10 (16 April 2012)

I have not read the books, but this sure comes across as a movie made purely to satisfy those fans. It's a long string of 'must see' scenes that book readers have probably dreamed about seeing on the big screen. While some of those scenes are impressive, and may satisfy on that level, it ignores everything else about a good movie. Characters are terribly developed, dialog is weak, storyline is predictable with way too many convenient developments. I even found the cinematography disturbing. Action/fighting movie fans will even be disappointed as those scenes are nothing but ordinary (except it's disturbingly all children, of course). Romance fans will be saddened at the cheap attempts to make us care about relationships.
But perhaps I could have overlooked all that if they had attempted to address the cultural issue (some may say disease) of reality TV in some cogent and meaningful way. All we get here in broad strokes is: "It's bad". Uhhhh thanks, yeah I kinda thought that.