While not perfect, it is still enjoyable

Rating: 7/10 (15 April 2013)

I am one of the people who haven't read the book, so that might be why I enjoy this movie. To me, The Hunger Games has an interesting take on an already well known concept. The idea of kids fighting to the death in gladiator combat has been done before and thankfully The Hunger Games pulls off the fear and brutality of kids murdering each other quite well and makes the combat legitimately intense. However the movie does suffer from some problems such as a lack of explanations to what is going (which is probably explained in the book), the annoying wardrobe, and the made for TV style camera angles.
The movie establishes that in the future there are twelve districts that compete in a contest called The Hunger Games. For those of you who don't know, The Hunger Games is a competition where two kids from each district come together to duke it out with one another in a giant forest. Fortunately, the people who run the games care very little about the lives of the children and see them merely as entertainment, so some elements inside the forest are controllable just for the sake of making things more intense.
The main character is Katniss, who is a quiet and responsible girl who knows how to use a bow properly. I will say that the acting is quite good in this movie, though I feel like Katniss should've looked a little bit more poverty stricken since she lives in the poorest district. The other actors all do a fine job, while I will say that Peeta kind of annoyed me a bit. One small annoying thing in this movie is that the wardrobe is ridiculous. I understand that it is the future, but it looks like the future of style was designed by Nicki Minaj. It just doesn't make any sense why the wardrobe is so goofy.
Now there is something about this movie that I like and don't like at the same time: the camera angles/atmosphere. The movie is all about a show where kids kill each other, so naturally it makes sense to shoot the movie in a way similar to a TV show. There are a lot of facial close-ups, shaky cams, interviews, and stuff like that. This makes the movie feel like you are watching a TV show about a world with a violent TV show. While this is good in one sense, it also means that the movie is kind of pointless to watch a second time and in the long run the movie doesn't really feel like a... movie. That is why I can't ever see myself ever paying to watch this movie or its sequels because it feels more like I'm watching a television show than it does a movie. Some people may like that, I thought it was interesting but not exactly good.
Overall, The Hunger Games is a good movie that does have some faults here and there but is still worth watching. Ironically the movie is talking about violence in entertainment and yet it is a movie where the audience is enjoying the violence in it. Still worth watching, though it isn't anything too deep or engaging.