I read the first Hunger Games book in two nights on my iPhone. I could not put it down. It wasn’t my favorite book but it was compelling. I loved the way the world was described. I liked the way The Capitol and its citizens looked. I appreciated the Districts and their distinct industries. Reading about the games themselves was a page-turner.
Enter the movie. It wasn’t a terrible movie, just a letdown. It looked gorgeous, the sets were awesome, and most of the costumes were AMAZING. However, the direction glossed over many things so quickly that the move felt like a SparkNotes version of the book. My biggest beef is that Katniss bought her mocking jay pin from some random lady in a flea market. Another misstep was the “Girl on Fire” dress that Katniss wore as she rode through the area. The book described it so magnificently that I just knew they would blow the whole FX budget on the dress. Sadly they didn’t. It ended up looking like she got a Project Runway dress with some partially lit Sterno slapped on the back of it. Her red interview dress did not disappoint and was on par with how I imagined it.
I’m on the fence about saying this was a terrible movie. I can’t, in good conscious, say that it was. I could see all the work on the screen but something missed the mark for me and left me with an absolutely bland experience. I just didn’t buy Katniss and her motives on screen. I didn’t really feel the fear in the actual games. The cornucopia was way smaller on screen than in my imagination. Where were the mutts? Why did they not have the faces of the dead? Haymitch didn’t just seem like a raging alcoholic as presented in the book. He just seemed like a guy who drank every once and awhile and pretty much had his act together. I could go on but I’ll admit that there was an overwhelming amount of information to cram in a 2:22 minute movie. My hope is that the next two movies are broken up into two parts so there won’t be pressure on the crew to cram it all in and give us something absolutely meh. I can complain all I want but I was right there at the midnight showing and I will be there again at the next release.
According to IMDB, The Hunger Games had an estimated budget of $78,000,000 and as of June 24, 2012, the total domestic gross is $402,964,540.
The Hunger Games was released theatrically on March 23, 2012 by Lionsgate. The DVD, Blu-Ray, and other digital formats will be released on August 18, 2012.
Note: I finished The Hunger Games trilogy. The second book was really good. I went through it just as fast as I went through the first one. The third book felt long and excruciating. It was extremely depressing and I wanted to quit reading it several times.