It doesn't make sense

Rating: 5/10 (23 March 2012)

I haven't read the book. Therefore some of the following is assumption on my part.
For example I have to assume that the book makes sense and that trying to squeeze it onto celluloid meant cutting some of the less important story points. Unfortunately whoever did the cutting seems to have gotten a little happy with the scissors.
The basic idea of cutting up revolutionary areas into districts and oppressing them by a lottery that kills off their children, I can see the point of this enough that I will take it as a fundamental plot point that I am not meant to question. I accepted the similar premise for the Running Man so I can't really argue with it here. But they keep on with inconsistencies that just start to grate.

If only one kid can live why would you form a team? At some point you have to kill your team-mates, and they have to kill you! - Why do District 11 riot when Rue is killed, their girl (the ginger one that accidentally poisons herself with the berries) is still alive at that point. - Why do all the people that can't get food even care about watching the TV? And why do they all have TV's in their shanty-town shacks? And why do they seem so keen on watching their children kill each other? - In a society with the technology to create touchable 3D holographic projections why would anyone believe it was real? And indeed, if you have that technology, why make it real?

All of these little niggles just picked away at me during the movie. But the reason they niggled and annoyed me was because the film didn't flow properly. It kept drifting off into these scenic bits with soft music that didn't make any sense and it kept reminding you that you were watching a movie so you aren't held in and your brain starts picking at those threads.
it isn't terrible. It just doesn't really work.