Drags on and on and on and on and on

Rating: 4/10 (30 November 2012)

It's a trick to fill out a 2 1/2 hour movie of teenagers. And The Hunger Games has pulled it off. Every scene every shot is painfully longer than it needs be. And scenes repeat themselves often throughout the movie. Girl meets obstacle, girl stares longingly into the distance or into someone's eyes, girl moves on to next obstacle and so on. And on. And on. So other than an endless series of self contained scenes strung together doing little to move the plot along, it limps every onward, punctuated by brief flashes of the poor miserable people back home. And some kind of vague jealousy back story that's never fleshed out. As a side note I've read that the director was quite proud of his extreme and somewhat random use of shaky cam in order to impress the audience with the 'urgency' of the situation. There is nothing urgent with this movie. If you watch it, feel free to get up at any time and make a snack, go to the bathroom, have a smoke, whatever. You won't miss anything and when you return it will be like you never left.