Bad Adaptation

Rating: 4/10 (9 April 2012)

*sigh* If I hadn't read the book, the movie would have had little meaning for me. I took my husband, who hasn't read the book, and the movie had little meaning for him.
I grant you, it's hard to take a 1st person novel and film it. But even a crappy voice-over (as in Blade Runner theatrical version) would have helped this get closer to the spirit of the original. As it stands, it's just another PG-13 scifi flick that looks and is horribly derivative, leaving out most of the symbolism, motives, and background.
Worse yet, the violence was toned down. Hard to believe, but true. Permanent maimings in the book became minor "put some Neosporin on it" wounds in the film. Good grief. The horrible, pointless violence the tributes were subjected to, and its scars, physical & psychological, was a major point in the book.
Only fans of the book who are able to fill in the blanks and don't mind doing so would be happy with this. Am glad I went at very early matinée prices, because paying full evening price for this disappointing film would have been painful. As it is -- meh.