Did I miss Something?

Rating: 5/10 (27 April 2012)

I don't get it. I haven't read any of these books so I was going into this film as a regular viewer and can't figure out why some people think this was a great film, the best film ever made, best movie ever etc.
Huh?
We've seen this before, we've seen these themes before and done much better than what was done here. Part of this film reminded me of The Running Man from the 80's, part of it the TV show Survivor.
Despite the fact that the film lasted over 2 hours, as a viewer I had no real idea what the reason behind The Hunger Games was. There was very little character development done. There was very little building-up time to make you even vaguely interested in the characters or the main idea. We spend some time in the city before the main event but even that time is wasted. Nothing interesting happens here.
The last half of this film was people running around the woods while goofy looking technicians and even dumber looking aristocrat types watched. Clue- it helps if the Evil Guys look Evil and not Stupid.
I agree with some other reviews I have seen, this film looked like a Sci-Fi Channel movie. Where did the budget go?
Even worse, for a movie about a death sport, the movie was mostly pretty boring. You would get a little action and then back to boring dialog which itself did nothing to even help the plot.
If you've read the books you have something vested and a real background in this film already. I get it. You're probably going to like it for reasons other than what was on the screen. For those of us who watched without reading the book, let me tell you > not a good film.