As far as teen oriented films go, this was pretty solid.

Rating: 7/10 (15 May 2012)

First of all, I loved Jennifer Lawrence in this; this girl can really act and is definitely going to be a good actress. The best moments of the film pretty much all involved her and she takes this from just an OK film to something pretty good (although it was a slightly sub par performance compared than her in Winters Bone, but that's probably to do with the script). I'm definitely a fan of hers.
The film was fairly unique, and much better than the usual teen fair. The concept kept you interested and things definitely got a bit dark, more so than normal in a run of the mill kids film. Surprisingly, the pacing of the film was excellent, as it never really felt like 2.5 hours long, at all. I've always found that to be a good trait of a great film.
I wasn't really moved by the "big emotional scene", because I never really cared for any of the characters outside of Katniss. There wasn't enough character development for me to feel connected to them. A bit surprising given the almost 2.5 hour run time, you figured there'd be enough time for more character development. Admittedly, it did seem to work for some of the younger kids in the audience (who probably read the book and had the background I lacked). However, the scene directly after this did hit home (for me anyway), as it really underscored the bleakness of the films sci-fi future.
The hype machine on this was clearly in over drive. I enjoyed it, but it's definitely not as good as it's been touted. It was fairly predictable as the ending was never really in doubt and there were few scenes that really blew me away. Still, definitely worth watching though.
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