Entertaining, but too PG

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2012)

I had high hopes for this, but in execution it turned out to be merely entertaining. Entertaining isn't bad, but other than the acting it isn't much better than your normal Hollywood action movie with good production values. It seemed like, to me, that by trying to accomplish too much they neglected the fundamentals of good movie making...develop the characters. The secondary characters have almost no depth or explanation for their actions. Why did Pete join the alliance? why was there even an alliance in a fight to the death? Why didn't he hack the others up when they got stung by the wasps? Why did Ru elect to help Kat? How did Ru's district partner know about Ru and Kat? Why would anyone trust the kids from the military district? Why did the trainers like Kat so much? Why was Kat like a mom to her sister? Not all those are directed at character development, but I think it is pretty obvious many parts are glossed over or explained with a very brief flash back.
The other main complaint I had is how the "hunger games" actually turn out to be. It starts off with a bang as multiple contestants appear to ignore the advice they were given and start fighting immediately leading to half the contestants getting killed in the first 30 seconds or so. However, from that point on it gets petty contrived and at times silly. Katniss, being the "good" one, doesn't hurt anyone that hasn't already hurt someone else. Her main skill seems to be hiding in trees and she gets saved on at least three occasions for no real logical reasons and not due to any skill of her own. All in all a fairly weak protagonist. One of my pet peeves is the talking kill, in this instance the girl who gets a knife to Kat's throat, but instead of killing her decides to chat for five minutes until someone comes along and kills her, but lets Kat live. I get that many people wont care about that, but to me a great movie doesn't need to rely on silly tricks to reach the conclusion and also will tackle the occasional thought provoking issue (in this case, would Kat have killed anyone who didn't "deserve" it in order to win the contest?).
I did enjoy the way the media was portrayed given what was at stake, the acting was very good, and of course the plot in general was good. My understanding is there is a sequel in the works to tackle the real issue, a society where kids are forced to fight to the death in the first place. Maybe that is why this wasn't as good as I thought it would be, the bigger issues are still to come. All in all I expected a stronger heroine and more substantial secondary characters.