NOT a good adaptation of the book - I am speechless.

Rating: 7/10 (23 March 2012)

I saw the movie yesterday night and truly, now, the more reviews I read, the more sad and disappointed I feel. I had really HIGH expectations for the movie, given that I loved the books. Overall, if you haven't read the books, I guess it's an okay movie... entertaining enough to kill time. But given the fact that I did read the books and loved them, I don't know what to say. I feel like they left out so many small details that seemed so important and significant to me it's outstanding the shock I felt seating inside the cinema, watching the movie I had been waiting months to come out.
Number 1: The red-haired avox girl... I can't believe they left that out. The time inside the arena - it all went so much faster than in the book, like the cave scene... that was supposed to last days! The fact that they didn't work AT ALL with the starving and thirst that Katniss felt in district 12 and once again inside the arena. The medicine for Peeta! It was supposed to be an injection! A life-saving injection! Not a share-with-my-forehead-cut cream! The mutts - nowhere close to what the author described in the books. The last fighting scene - if I remember well, wasn't it during the day and didn't Cato have an armor and didn't the cornucopia burn with the sun!? And the injury in Peeta's leg - what he had in the movie was so freaking small and unreal to what the books said I wanted to kill myself right there. When I saw that, I said to myself: he's most definitely not losing his leg. And guess what? HE DIDN'T.
Number 2: The filming itself was awful! The camera shook so much it was hard to keep up with what was going on at some time. And the music... there were scenes where, to me, the music was so important and still, there was just empty silence. The only part that had a decent score what the mutt-fight, but after that, nothing else.
Number 3: I though the acting was great, especially Elizabeth Banks on Effie, but the portrayal of the characters was once again shallow and gave no insight to them. The dialogue had no depth and seemed hollow at some points even. And if that's supposed to be a drunken Haymitch... I have no idea what's so wrong with being drunk then.
Number 4: They left out some characters that I though gave the story a better shaping, like Madge, for example, and Peeta's father, and the cookies that Katniss was supposed to throw out the window!
The more time I spend thinking about the movie the more I realize that, in a way, Hollywood has once again taken an excellent story and plot from and excellent book and turned it into a movie that at the end, is just looking to make more bucks. No consideration to the message that it could have sent to the public, the same way the books did. I guess in part it's the PG13 rating that they had to work with, but, still, I'm just dumbfounded. Worst of all? I can't believe the movie turned out this way with Suzanne Collins working on the team and actually WRITING the screenplay.