Here's to hoping the books are better

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2012)

I was a bit disappointed with this movie. I did not read the books at all, though I knew they existed. I read many, many books and so sometimes it's a little refreshing coming into something brand new with little to no knowledge. After seeing the movie, this is not one of those times and I really wish I had read the book before seeing the movie.
The movie was terrible and anti climatic. The actors did a great job, especially J.Lawrence. I've not seen her in any other movies to compare but her performance in this one was great. The problems I had with the movie was that it was 2 hours or so long and I wondered why it was called the hunger games. I know now a little bit from reading the reviews but I think they should have somehow explained it in some way. It was 2 hours long and I wondered why the district people looked so poor and forlorn and why the Capitol people looked so rich and happy, if not a little weird. It was 2 hours long and I wondered how the district people got to this point where they had to relinquish 2 of their kind to go to this Capitol to potentially die on national television. I'm no director or screenwriter and I definitely don't hold any degrees in film-making but with a couple of hours to work with, I feel like all the above could have been explained.
And at the end of the movie, I thought to myself, is this it? Is this all that everyone was hyped up about. I sat there awhile after Katniss and Peeta got home thinking that something else was going to happen and it did...the credits started rolling.
And the Gale/Peeta/Katniss thing is nonexistent in the movie. We meet Gale but we don't spend a lot of time with him in his relationship(?) with Katniss. If it can be called that. And whatever relationship Peeta has with Katniss at home is also nonexistent for me because I didn't understand the whole bread thing.
I gave this movie a 3 only because the actors did a good job with what they had. Otherwise, I will not be going to see the next 2 movies if they make them unless Peter Jackson, Guillermo Del Toro, or Kenneth Branagh is the director. What can I say, I'm a huge fan of LOTR, Pan's Labyrinth and Mr. Branagh is just legendary.