The Hunger Games (movie)

So, I finally got around to watching The Hunger Games movie. I don't usually write movie reviews because...it's kind of hard to explain. Although I generally enjoy movies, I don't really care about them. Not enough to review them. I imagine you can see where this review is going.

I felt I should write a quick review for this movie since I wrote such gushing reviews of the books. So here it is.

I'm not going to get into great detail on the differences between the book and the movie. Was it missing things from the book I wish were in the movie? Of course (Haymitch falling off the stage?). It was made up for by adding in things that made the movie work better than how it would have without them. So I'm cool with the differences.

Now, lets talk about casting for just a second. Whoever did the casting did a fantastic job. Even the people that didn't look like I imagined them worked really well. And most of them..well, they were all pretty close to how I saw them in my head. Rue and Effie? They were PERFECT. Casting was well done. Very well done.

My biggest complaint about the whole thing is that there weren't enough extremes. The people of District 12 were poor, but weren't portrayed as epicly poor. And the capitol was extravagant and kind of weird, but not as over the top as they should have been. Haymitch had a few drinks, but wasn't a horrible drunk. The Games themselves were awful, but were not near as barbaric as they were in the books. The extremes are what made the books so compelling. They were what I missed most when watching the movie.

I think I would have liked the movie a lot more had I never read the books. But if I'd watched the movie first I never would have read the books. It was good, but not great. I enjoyed it but...meh.