Not a waste of your time

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2012)

The Hunger Games. Now, to start this off, I did not read the books. I will not make any remarks on adaptation.
On the whole, I thought this film was generally good. I didn't get the hype, and quite frankly, I was afraid it was going to be another teen hype, with Twilight as its ancestor. However, I saw the trailer, and I heard a variety of comments telling me that it was nothing like a classic teen movie. Voices told me it was suspenseful, it was good, and it was in a way, terrifying.
Now I'm not sure about the terrifying part, although I must say, seeing films, reading about historical events and reading experiments, I'm always surprised by the human mind. People would go into all ends to save their own skin. This story portrayed this well, though maybe that's more to thank Suzanne Collins for than the makers of the film.
I believed that the story was indeed, suspenseful. It started off, introducing the main character, Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) and the district. From this, you could conclude that district 12 is poor in comparison to the rest of the world, and you could see that Katniss was a tough, young and adventurous young woman. This didn't last in my eyes. The character development was in some ways not very strong. Katniss went from a strong, independent, young woman to a woman who'd trust too quickly. In the end of the film, I believed her to be weak. Furthermore, you didn't get to know the other characters at all, save from Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Rue (Amandla Stenberg). I didn't care who died and who lived, save from the latter (Rue), who in my eyes, did a wonderful job of portraying a strong girl, brave until the very end.
I did get amazed by the reality of it all, considering the story. People going crazy on the outside, publishers doing anything to keep it interesting and tributes who'd do literally anything to save there own skin. I was content to see that this was not merely a love story, and that it actually involved some visible killing (since that was where the hunger games were all about wasn't it? Killing and survival). I also like the cinematography. The camera-work was wonderful, creating that shaking effect whenever something was happening (think running, bombs and killing). However, occasionally, it was too rushed, too shaking. Even though you did get to see the killing, it left loads of it up to your own imagination. Bit pitiful, you didn't get to see what was really going on at that exact moment.
But overall, I think this was not a waste of my time. It isn't always the case, but in this film, the suspense weighed more than the faults. - That's why I've given it a royal 7/10.