Great augmentation of the book

Rating: 10/10 (26 March 2012)

Folks, viewing this movie MUST be preceded by the reading of the book. I noticed that the vast majority of the negative votes comes from people who explain that they have not yet read the book.
The book, however, is so complex that there was no way the film -- even with a length of 2.5 hrs. -- could do it justice. There are several rich themes explored in the book (trust; brutal abuse of political power; moral barbarism; empathy; love grown through similarity and familiarity versus love won through suffering and appreciation; the need for social intelligence; loneliness; subversion of a nearly absolute power; addiction to violence-seeking voyeurism) that had to be dropped or condensed, making the film concentrate on only one topic: hope. As a fan of the HG books, I loved seeing the things that I had to imagine while reading the text: Gale's reaction to the on-screen kisses, the mechanics of the arena, president Snow's reasoning about the ultimate goal of the Hunger Games, Haymitch's attempts to get sponsors.