Not even comparable to the first movie

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2013)

Lets start out by saying I know all three books from the hunger games backwards and forwards, I am not a person who is stating their opinion on this movie without anything to back it up with. I've probably read the books 7 times each, including before and after I saw each of the released movies, in order to really compare the movie to the book. When I found out these books were turning into movies I was scared and excited. Scared because every movie adaptation I've seen where I had read the book before I have HATED. And this rang true for the first Hunger Games movie. I didn't picture a lot of the cast as they were in the movie, I had even imagine the clothes,the district and the arena differently. Plus the plot and the events were so different, they left out characters like Madge, yet added scenes that weren't as important to the story line. Of course J-Law was fabulous, but isn't she always? But this review is about the second movie. No I was not excited at all to see the second after how the first turned out but I decided to give it a shot, and thank god I did. The new cast,especially Johanna and Finnick, who were two of my favorite characters in the book were amazing. I was watching the casting and wasn't sure about them at first but man was I wrong. Next the arena and the clothes and everything set involved was so much better than on the first and matched the book so much more. And there it is the main reason this movie shined in my opinion, IT STAYED TRUE TO THE BOOK. From EXACT quotes at the right moments to the arena to the ending scene, it was exactly how I hoped they would portray the book. And how I hoped the first movie would've been. I don't know what caused this change but I don't really remember as many exact quotes and things in the first but who knows maybe I was too distracted by everything else that went wrong in that movie. Whereas everything in this movie went right. It did what no other movie adaptations that I've seen did which is not add useless things to the movie in order for it to sell more. Except maybe played up the Katniss-Gale romance but I think that is just an exaggeration in order to highlight the love triangle, I'm not a huge fan of this but it doesn't really bug me either. I read some reviews before this and they said the beginning was to boring/slow moving. To this I say it was even slower in the book and that would've been bad in the movie. I think they shortened the beginning just enough so that people who didn't read the book would understand the events leading up to the Quarter Quell and it also leads into a lot of the stuff to come in MockingJay. So yes the beginning was not action filled but it was absolutely necessary. Next people DIDN'T LIKE THE END. I'm sorry what? you didn't like the cliffhanger end? IT IS LITERALLY EXACTLY AS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE,they did not do it just to torture you movie goers, the book literally has the exact same ending line so if you really don't like it take it up with Suzanne Collins not people on this movie (personally i love the ending). However much I enjoyed this movies there was a little bit that could have been done better, like a little bit of the dialogue. But as a whole i think it was Action filled, of course there was romance, darkly comedic and a wonderful movie adaptation of a wonderful book. Unlike after Hunger Games I am truly excited for the first part of MockingJay. (and curious to see at which agonizing moment they decide to split those two up at, for which i have my guess, but shh that's a true spoiler)