If you have not already done so, please read my review of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay books.
When I heard that the Hunger Games movie was PG 13, I was quite disappointed; I could not comprehend how the movie with an age rating under 18A could be anything other than horrible. But since I’ve read all the novels, I could not stop myself from watching the movie the day of its release, and I must say this movie was a lot better than I expected.
The plot of the movie is quite similar to that of the novel; in a North American dystopia the capitol (home of the ruling class) forces each of its 12 districts (home of the working class) to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 to 18 (tributes) to a fight to the death until one person remains. This is all done on an annual basis for the capitol’s entertainment. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, volunteers as tribute when her sister is chosen and now must do everything she can to survive.
If you go into a movie with the expectations that it will be as good as the book, or include everything from the book, then you are simply setting yourself up to be disappointed. But if you lower your standards to realistic expectations, then The Hunger Games is a very enjoyable movie. Despite the large amount of the book that was changed or removed for the film adaptation, the movie still featured scenes that gave the audience goose bumps and it also featured violence, though it was significantly toned down.
The character Peeta Mellark felt weak in the movie. Thresh and the “careers” felt unintimidating, and most of the other characters seemed underdeveloped. But I was not bothered by that because Katniss was Katniss. Jennifer Lawrence did a fantastic job at acting out her role as the female protagonist.
Bottom Line: despite all the changes that were made, the movie was still stayed true to the novel. It captured most of the realism and the acting was great, but it missed on a lot of the emotional aspects and on the violence, the ending also felt rushed and anti climactic. But this is all in comparison to the novel, which is an unfairly high standard, as far as movies go, this is the best I’ve seen so far in 2012. I give The Hunger Games movie a 9/10.