I loved this. Some people may disagree with me, but I thought it was an excellent tribute to Suzanne Collin's series. The first time I watched it, I thought that there were several mistakes, that the movie wasn't similar to the book - that some scenes were deleted or added and that ruined the movie. The second time I watched it, however, it finally opened my eyes. The Hunger Games is the one true thing I obsess about, and when watched the second time I realized the wit of Gary Ross and the added and/or deleted scenes. It really was a tribute to THG. Since I read the books, I know what scene comes next or what scene should've came, or what happens in the scene. I thought Gary Ross did an excellent job of explaining to viewers who haven't read the books before what was happening, and connecting with the ones that did. Another star feature was Jennifer Lawrence. A part of the action in the book and movie (SPOILER ALERT) is that Katniss has to fake being in love with Peeta. People who have read this part in the book knows what's happening - but those who haven't obviously don't. Jen's acting was so incredible (or maybe the script writing) that you could tell it was a bi-polar love without there being a voice-over in her head - which was the easy way out. Yes, there wasn't a lot of action - although you did feel like you experienced more than you actually saw. There isn't much character development, but I find that it's better this way - to have a story that's complete rather than interesting and intriguing characters. This movie is about two and half hours long - which tells you how complex the story must be in the book - but they did a great job on a low budget (and got nearly $500 million out of it!). OVERALL: I definitely recommend this - to the readers, or to people wishing to know more about the reasons behind my review ;)

The hunger Games was suppose to be different. Twilight was made for the teenage girls out there, and Harry Potter was made for the boys. The Hunger Games was suppose to be the series of movies that spread all these demographics from teenage boy, girls and adults. It failed in doing this. The studio understood what it had on its hands when it made this film, but in doing this they also screwed it up. The wanted to make so much money, but in speeding up the movie making process they made a poor movie. The CGI is poorly done and obvious, the story was compacted too much and they didn't have a good sense in the atmosphere it wanted to create. All This could be from a studio that wanted this movie to be released too fast. The CGI in this movie was obvious, many of the big action scenes are laughably bad. The plot of the movie compacted way to much, to the sense where all the action takes place, but really not explanation for a lot of it. Character development is the biggest loss in that, as many characters just feel empty. The reason this movie gets a passing grade by me is because of the performance of Jennifer Lawrence. See was amazing as the main character. A couple years removed from her Oscar nomination, in this role she shows she was not just a one trick pony. She has the perfect balance between scared to death and a quiet confidence. Woody Harrelson does his best, but his character suffers the most from the condensed movie. his character does a 180 turn in personality, with no real explanation given. Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutchinson are serviceable in there roles but really nothing special. Overall a movie that had loads of potential, but fails under a impatient studio.