Excellent, a breath of fresh air

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2012)

'The Hunger Games' has received a lot of hype lately and it has deserved every bit of it! The story is great, I regret not reading the books before going to see the film because it's such an interesting story. The script is very good, dialogue can be a bit bland at points but it can be excellent in certain scenes. Actors in this film perform really well, there's no weak links aside from a few of the district tributes but they do not get a lot of screen time anyway. Jennifer Lawrence is, of course, amazing. She has shown she is a serious actress and has really out-done herself in this. Josh Hutcherson also performed well along with Liam Hemsworth despite not having a lot of screen time, he still makes an impression. My favourite performance however, was by Stanley Tucci. He was excellent, his role was not the most vital but it did shape a lot of the film's context, with him being the cheesy show host with a big fake smile and catch-phrases. His performance was without a doubt the best in the film.
The editing was really well done, it must have been difficult to try and make such a violent plot become child friendly, they've managed to do their best. It cleverly cuts away from violent scenes meaning very little blood is shows so you think you've seen something horrible when you haven't really, it's a good example of how films do not need to be violent to have an impact. However, young children can still be frightened by this because it can be very jumpy, particularly during the climax, and the sound effects could scare easily.
The only problem I had with this film was some of the hand-held camera work was just too much, there were points where the camera was jolting so much that you didn't really know what was going on.
Overall, I would thoroughly recommend this film to both children and adults however, I do believe only people over 12 should watch this film as it can be quite frightening. This film is a breath of fresh air and shows that a blockbuster can be cinematically great as well as commercially.