It ain't all that...

Rating: Null/10 (21 April 2012)

The reviews for this movie are ridiculous, I can't understand where all the high ratings are comings from (Possible hormones?). The actors are competent, a mile better than that twilight rubbish - decent cast; but the implementation of the filming and the way the story is portrayed is poor. Most people will have read the books, if not - do, the film is a poor reflection. Not enough focus on the circumstance the people have been forced to live under, nice scenes up until the hero's get to district 1, but pre-arena and in the arena the story changes from telling the story to a number of poorly imagined variations of the set pieces in the book, to such an extent that it gets embarrassing to watch. Each 'major' scene is trimmed to its absolute minimal essence and does not link well chronologically. Suddenly Katniss finds some random blood and voilà, there is Peter? I'm sorry - but cake decorating and being Leonardo DaVinci in body painting, with no links or explaining material? Absolute rot, and just accepting on one or two arrow shots that Katniss is "Herne the Hunter" reborn does not scan well, and without the books support its a bit of a head nod "Yeah right" for too much of her exploits.
I saw Pirates on the same day, which blew me away, creative, good characters and story and compared to a poorly told story with a huge budget; I would take it any day of the week.
Imagine "The Golden Compass" but a better story and acting; i.e. it still sucks like a kid on a MacDonalds milkshake; but you don't feel 'quite' as bad for the production crew...
Also, almost nobody has mentioned how its a blatant rip-off of The Running Man - only with teenagers, The Running Man is superior in so may respects, but this film has the advertisers buck and a lot of money men rubbing their hands. Lets hope this overrated debacle improves in the second and (groan) third parts.
Don't get me wrong, the film with such a small amount of change in the direction and a few better linking scenes could have been excellent, but as it stands it simply isn't a good film. One of the main bugbears is the lack of involvement from the outside world when the combatants are in the arena; a few poorly chosen scenes and some weird sky-dome CG - nothing of Haymitch's efforts on the outside, crowd reactions to internal events, sponsors gifts etc... (I'm sorry - but the soup scene after so much focus on this aspect in the books, is simply poor storytelling) just random unjustified huge escalations in the social situations, which also does not bear out the book. i.e. the populace has been watching this show for 74 years, yet all of a sudden one of the contestant dies (The young herb girl, uh-huh) yet now they are so peeved they revolt violently. 5-6 out of 10 is fair, but for the money they spent and the advertising overdrive 4 is more accurate.
If you haven't read the books, you'll wonder what all the fuss is about, and if you did read the books - you will moreso.
Wait for the DVD; or better still don't watch it - suckers to the advertisers one and all :-(