Falls short

Rating: 4/10 (24 March 2012)

I don't know what to say. You need to read the book to begin to understand what's going on, but reading the book will disappoint you, because then you realize how much was cut. I understand that they only have a certain amount of time to fit everything they want to, but this was like a really bad cliffs notes of the book. It all seemed so rushed. There was a severe lack of depth.
Let me start off with saying that the acting from the heavy hitters was great. Harrelson, Tucci, Banks, Sutherland. There just wasn't enough of it. I have to admit that I felt they nailed the chemistry between Katniss and Peeta (both actors were fantastic). Everything else just seemed too disjointed.
What annoyed me (just to name a few of the many things):
When Gale says that he has 40 entries for the reaping, unless you read the book, you wouldn't know why.
Prim isn't the one who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin.
The emotional connection between Katniss and Rue just isn't there for me.
Lenny Kravitz can't deliver a line without sounding stupid. Cinna seemed like he had more going of for him in the book. Jennifer Lawrence did an excellent job showing her connection with him, but you can only work with the clay you are given. Cinna/Kravitz didn't deliver.
Cinna's assistants did not have a presence. Much could have been done to use their personalities to reflect what was inherently wrong with the Capitol.
Katniss is supposed to be more confused than they portray her when she pulls out the nightlock berries. In the book, she actually uses them out of desperation, thinking that although it is a possibility that the Capitol might stop her, it is unlikely, and she is ready to die. In fact, she actually gets them in her mouth and almost swallows them. But in the movie, she tells Peeta to trust her, implying that she knows that the Capitol will not let them die. They never even reach her mouth. I don't think that this was an acting flaw, but rather a directing flaw.
The mutts at the end of the games are supposed to be more human like, with the feeling that they had the eyes of the dead tributes. Not just big dogs.
The last 5 minutes was a montage of useless clips. It was as if someone hit the FF button on the remote to 30XX.
Only 2 scenes from the entire movie moved me. When Katniss volunteered for Prim and when Rue's father started the uprising in District 11. I was struggling to connect with the rest.
Maybe 1st person stories can't be translated to 3rd person movies. If they can, this wasn't one of them. The whole appeal of the book was seeing things through Katniss's eyes.
Maybe I wasn't the target audience.