Really Good, But Missing a few Chunks

Rating: 9/10 (23 March 2012)

After reading the books a year ago before knowledge of the making of a movie was even in the public, I was obsessed. My friends and I daydreamed about the movie. We selected a small pool of actors whom we thought were accurate, none of which actually were cast. I got my mother obsessed with them, and she agreed to take me and a friend to the midnight premiere of the Hunger Games. I can honestly say as a stand- alone movie it was really good. The acting was spot-on, the scenes were set up nicely, and the overall story was good. However, as an avid Hunger Games fan, I couldn't overlook the significant chunks they cut out and replaced with useless scenes of Seneca Crane and President Snow. The first half of the movie is the preparation for the Games, leaving much less time for the actual Games. Haymitch simply isn't drunk enough. Josh Hutcherson does a good job of portraying Peeta's general character, but he looks nothing like my Peeta, and he's almost a foot or so shorter than his lover girl, which i find frankly weird. I would caution those who obsess over details to steer clear, they've cut out most of the little things and a few things that i thought were major. They completely under-exaggerate Peeta's leg injury, it looks like a little gash instead of a life threatening infection. The sleep-syrup/berry scene is cut out entirely. In the end Peeta does not, in fact have his leg amputated, instead it sort of magically heals after the Games are over. I did love Rue in this movie though, and was bawling like a newborn baby when she died. The only thing wrong with that is that they cut to District 11 randomly when she dies and show two useless minutes of revolt before getting back to the characters we actually care about.
In summary, I loved the movie. It was an excellent adaptation and followed the story well, though some Katniss narration would have been nice. If your a reader, prepare to be angered at the last ten minutes, because its like a different story altogether.