Young Chick Flick meets Survivor

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2012)

I have not read the books. I went in with an open mind curious about the hype and smash sales.
Halfway through the movie I found myself bored. Nothing had really happened at all. It was all young girl fantasy: "I come from the poor oppressed area and I am special and I am self conscious and people are forcing me to kill people because I bravely volunteered to save my sister's life and I have cute boys and I get to wear cute dresses and I am the hope of the whole galaxy!"
The futuristic society is yet another futuristic society that could never happen...and this is probably why the story does not translate well from book to screen. In a book one can create a cool future world where all the failures of the cool world are not seen. On screen in a visual context these failures become warts seen by many.
All the people in the capital (no other major cities or countries evidently exist) wear colorful clothes and makeup...and do nothing but await The Hunger Games all year? Who makes these clothes? How does capitalistic behavior work in this socialist society? The capital is immaculately clean...not a single wastebasket is in place...is there no trash ever generated? And with all the spectacle of this no one has ever seen clothing that acts like it is "fire lit"? What...they kept the fabric in hiding waiting for the heroine?
The place where the Hunger Games takes place is a domed world where there is a perimeter...yet they must create a firestorm to send the girlie back from the perimeter? Why, won't she run into a wall? Beasties can be CGI made to appear in a forest and to kill people...but isn't that concept in violation of the idea of The Hunger Games of having the contestants kill each other?
There are too many convenience that are told (the idea of a foreshadow is to "show"; not "tell"). "Show them you are strong; throw this" means this will occur later. "I learned camouflage icing cakes in my Mom's bakery;" a bakery that exists in District 12 where people are so hungry they beg for bread in rainy streets. Then the camouflaged person immaculately fits in to the scenery with a perfect face meld with a muddy area...despite the person having been gashed with a sword (if he was so injured did they let him go? He was a wimp, the idea is to kill the other contestants so why not slaughter him then?) The camouflage is perfect...even though there is no mirror to help make the face lines match perfect. Way too convenient.
The bullet train is cool looking. The engineering behind it is farcical. When is maintenance done? You built a vehicle that runs 200 mph over angles hundreds of feet above a tree canopy...but no one in District 12 has any electronics...except they all get to see The Hunger Games on TV?
Comments have been made about the struggle to move the book to screenplay. I can see why.