The Hunger Games

ATTENTION: MOVIE SPOILERS INCLUDED!!

The Hunger Games

March 24 2012

I have been WAITING with excitement to see this movie! I got to see it with my husband on the BIG screen at the theatre. It was packed but we got great seats.

My opinion:

4.5 out of 5 bags of popcorn for the overall movie

5 out of 5 boxes of milk duds for my personal entertainment

My suggestion: This is a MUST see in the theatre

The gist: The Hunger Games is set in a futuristic world where the capital chooses one boy and one girl from each of the 12 districts to compete in a fight to the death. The movie focuses on Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) who volunteers to take her younger sisters place as tribute from District 12. She is joined by a young boy named Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).

My Take: I gave this movie 5 stars for my own personal entertainment. My first 5 star movie rating and I will stand by it no matter what everyone else thinks. I read all 3 books and LOVED the first book the best of all of them. I think it is important to have read the book before the movie as I don’t think it would be as enjoyable if you didn’t have some basis for what was going on. This movie was perfection.

Jennifer Lawrence was perfect as Katniss Everdeen. I had my reservations about her when I heard she had been cast, but after seeing the movie I am thrilled with her. She is a true star. There was one moment specifically in the movie before she is lifted up into the arena when you can feel her fear about what is to come. I liked that she had both a hard and soft side to her.

Josh Hutcherson who played Peeta was excellent as well. I was also hesitant about him when I heard he had been cast, but was very happy with his performance.

The movie followed the book really well, although they did leave out a few parts but that is always to be expected when converting a book to a movie. I think the movie really captured the grittiness and the rawness of The Hunger Games and how brutal it was for all the tributes, even the ones that were trained and wanted to go in. Still when it gets down to it it’s an awful and hard thing to do, killing off other kids. They did have to keep the movie PG 13 so it was missing some of the goriness of the book.

I loved it, and would love to see it again. I think the second movie will be just as amazing and I cannot wait until it come out.