The ultimate in reality television and a decent book to film adaption

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2015)

I would describe the story as Survivor meets Stephen Kings 'The Long Walk' or Orwell's '1984'. It is the ultimate in reality television, romance, scripted realism and survival. Involving 2 children from each of this future society's districts who must compete in a cruel televised tournament in which the 24 lottery "winners" fight to the death for the entertainment of the masses. Yup I always knew reality TV was evil and this is where its headed.
The second time was the charm with this movie for me because I enjoyed it way more when I caught it on TV the other night then I did the first time around. Not exactly sure why or what changed for me except that it's now been a few years since I read (and loved) the book so I wasn't as busy comparing the two. The movie still dragged a bit in the middle for me and Katniss spent way too much time hanging out in trees but ultimately I was entertained throughout.
Great casting in Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, well everyone really; I liked Woody Harrelson & Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci & Donald Sutherland.
They also did a good job of recreating the world that Suzanne Collins had created in her book (Capital city, all the crazy makeup, girl on fire costume) and explaining what the hell was going on in this post apocalyptic society, which couldn't have been easy. There was also less violence here, with very little actual bloodshed on screen (for ratings purposes?) and someone got to keep their leg, so that was nice albeit a little dull. 12/29/14