Fair Adaptation of the Book

Rating: 7/10 (22 August 2014)

I watched the movie, read the book and watched the movie again in that very order. Probably not the best approach, but no big deal right? Not exactly.
I thought the movie was good when I first saw it, not great, but good. After reading the book the movie was diminished a bit but still good. Hunger Games did a fairly good job adhering to the book. There were some changes, but I could see that the majority of the changes had to do with time constraints more than anything else. To stay completely true to the book the movie would have had to be four hours long or so. After reading the book I found myself being overly critical and longing for certain scenes to be more detailed. I was looking to capture the same emotions I had when reading the book.
As movies go, this is a nice dystopic film. The tale is not over the top with heroism but rather subtle heroics. The action is moderate and enough to keep the movie lively. Ultimately, your attention is held by your desire for the main character to survive because that's what the Hunger Games are all about.