Review after seeing Hunger Games at World Premiere at LA Live

Rating: 4/10 (13 March 2012)

I had a chance to attend the premiere of The Hunger Games on 3/12/2012 in downtown LA. I read the entire book cover to cover the day before the premiere, so the book was very fresh in my mind when I watched. I was excited to see the movie, as I thought the book lent itself to amazing potential for a movie.
Unfortunately, the movie was very disappointing on multiple levels. The character development was virtually non-existent. The movie felt rushed even though it was 140+ minutes long—they tried to stay too true to the book, but the problem with this was that they never went deep enough to address the major themes of the book.
Other than Jennifer Lawrence, the acting was not very memorable and probably best described as mediocre. The emotions expressed by the actors seemed very inconsistent with the horrifying experience they were purportedly living through. There was minimal development of the supporting cast.
While the movie had its flaws, it was pretty well made, well filmed and I think it probably stood on its own (although it's hard for me to assess that given that I read the book). The producers at Lionsgate clearly had an objective of dumbing this movie down and toning the violence down for commercialization purposes. The problem with this is that they deny Suzanne Collins and the readers of the book a quality movie.