Movie Review-----THE HUNGER GAMES

Reading THE HUNGER GAMES Trilogy was an obsessive experience for me. I started them on a Tuesday morning and by Friday evening of the same week, I was turning the final page of the last book. My Kindle was an extra appendage that week. I quite honestly could not stop reading them. I have been anxiously awaiting the movie and I kept my expectations low. I have learned that when I truly love a book and then they make a movie, the film very rarely holds up to the film. With the exceptions of THE GODFATHER, ORDINARY PEOPLE, and OUT OF AFRICA, I am often let down by a movie adaptation. Now that I have seen the film of the first book THE HUNGER GAMES, I can't say that I was disappointed with it, but I also wasn't as thrilled as I thought I would be. I will start with the positive things....Jennifer Lawrence is brilliant as Katniss. She simply IS Katniss. There isn't a moment in her performance that she is anything less but beautifully present and in the moment completely. It is one of the best performances that I have seen in this sort of genre film. The cinematography is gorgeous and the location shooting in Asheville, North Carolina is perfect to represent the setting of the actual Games. All of the supporting performances are impressive, with special mention given to Stanley Tucci and Elizabeth Banks. Donald Sutherland is appropriately menacing as The President. Wes Bentley is always a welcome sight. Now to the negatives....I felt that the movie moved rather slowly. The two people I saw it with hadn't read the books however and disagreed with me. It felt as though we would never get to the actual Games. I thought the whole set-up took too long. But maybe it was just because I was too familiar with the book. Who knows? Without giving anything away, one of the characters in the book that I felt was one of the most important was the young girl, Roo. The character in the book felt much more fleshed out and the relationship between Roo and Katniss was built up much more than the film time allows. So when the inevitable conclusion to this duo comes, it doesn't have the weight in the movie that it had in the book. I remember distinctly turning the page when "it" happened and having to stop to catch my breath. This moment in the movie had little impact. Now I realize that I am just "old", but what bothered me the most about the movie was actually WATCHING the actual Hunger Games take place. Let me explain....in the book, my mind allowed me to envision what I wished when it came to the killings. On film, you can't escape the violence. And there is something about watching teenagers kill each other on film in 2012 that left me extremely unsettled. Perhaps that is the point. But there were moments when I found myself distracted by the disturbance I felt watching these young people stabbing each other and hacking each other to death. Having said that, I will credit the filmmakers for making the violence as tasteful as possible. Nothing is necessarily unwatchable or there just for the sake of needing a little blood and guts. For me, it was just incredibly hard to be entertained by seeing the Games come to life. All in all, I enjoyed THE HUNGER GAMES movie adaptation. But it doesn't compare to the experience I had sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee envisioning the movie in my mind as I read these three incredible books. See the movie, by all means....then go directly to Barnes and Noble and buy the Trilogy. You won't be sorry.