It Struck Me As Little More Than "Survivor: Extreme"

Rating: 3/10 (11 November 2012)

Since "The Hunger Games" seems to have been pretty well received, I'm going to be going out on a limb here, but I just didn't care for it. I'll confess that I haven't read the book. Apparently some consider it a rip-off of a movie called "Battle Royale" - which I haven't seen. So I really didn't have any pre-conceived notions about this going in. I watched it because I had heard a lot of people liked it. So much for popular opinion.
I came out of this feeling as if I had just been subjected to almost two and a half hours of "Survivor: Extreme." In this case, it would be extreme because there's really only one survivor. In some future nightmare world, a government uses The Hunger Games as a punishment for a long ago uprising. Every year each of 12 Districts that rebelled has to send two young people (one male and one female) to do battle with one another and form alliances and kill each other off until only one is left. Meanwhile, this has become this society's version of reality TV, as the whole thing is televised, and the "tributes" (the young people in the battle) are interviewed. I suppose if you think about it, it's not actually a bad social commentary about our own society which gets so fixated on the drivel of our own reality TV. But I didn't find it entertaining. Somehow, watching a bunch of teenagers trying to kill each other didn't appeal to me all that much. There's also the fact that I really didn't care that much for any of the characters. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) is a bit sympathetic, especially as she tends to young Rue (Amandla Stenberg) - and certainly, Katniss and Peeta Josh Hutcherson) are the only two characters (aside from Rue) that you really could root for, but I still didn't feel much for them.
I honestly didn't know what to expect coming into this. I had no idea what the movie was about. In the end, I can't say that watching this was a highlight for me. (3/10)