*SPOILER ALERT* If you haven't watched the movie yet, you might want to steer clear of this post, just in case it spoils the experience.

So I watched 'The Hunger Games' today...

Yeah, I'm not really sure what I should say. It's a bit strange, having waited so long for a book to be adapted into a movie. I think I'm still a bit shell-shocked actually... What is my purpose in life now? I'm not sure if you've noticed but "The Hunger Games" made up about 60% of my blog posts, haha (I'm such a sad case). There's nothing else to look forward to in life! Unless you count waiting for Catching Fire to come out... Oh God I cannot wait. That book was even more epic than the first.

The Verdict:

I liked the movie. I think it was really well done. Converting a 300-something paged book into a 2 hour 15 minute film is no easy feat and I THINK it was done in a way that made it understandable to people who have never read said book. There were some really epic moments... but then there were also some duds and I will explain these below.

Yay! List time!

I liked:

The actors/actresses. Jennifer Lawrence was epic (obviously), and Josh Hutcherson was also pretty good. I especially liked his shocked face at the reaping scene LOL. His gobsmacked expression was unintentionally funny. Most of the tributes seemed to fit the descriptions in the book - although that probably has more to do with the fact that I've gotten so used to the casting. The only one who didn't look like the original character was Josh (Peeta). I always pictured him as tall and lanky but whatever, it's the acting that counts, right?

The Capitol. It was pretty. I like pretty things.

The training montage... where all the tributes go off and do thier own stuff. Clove was so badass with her knives and Foxface did that cool insect/plant thingy on the digital screen. Oh and Rue stole Cato's knife LOL.

When Peeta picked up the dumbbell and chucked it across the room, I felt like cheering. You show them Peeta! Chucked it like a sack of flour, he did.

Prim. She was good, in the few scenes that she had. Rue was great as well.

The explosion after Katniss shoots the apples. That felt immensely satisfying. It was like, psshhewww and then KABOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The gore. Probably a strange thing to say but the book was really confronting. I would have hated it if they'd tried to sugercoat the whole thing. It wouldn't have been as effective.

Peeta's camouflage technique. Haha. Nothing like icing cakes to save your life.

Seneca Crane's beard. 'Nuff said.

I hated:

Just how... rushed it felt I suppose. I know it's really really hard to condense such a multilayered world into a 2 hour movie but they could have at least lengthened the moments after their victory. I swear that whole aftermath went by in like 5 minutes. AND THEY MISSED A VERY IMPORTANT SCENE. (See below).

The shaky cam. Oh God, that darned shaky cam! Whose idea was it to film it that way? Was it a low budget thing? Was it an intentional trying-to-be-suspenseful-and-realistic thing? I don't know. All I know is that it was distracting, especially when you have to really focus to try to picture the whole scene.

The special effects... if you can even call them that. That parade/float scene was one of the best moments of the book, mostly because of how epic Suzanne Collins described their costumes. I don't have the book here with me but if I did, I would quote from it. Those flames looked really fake and cheesy. The mutts were also supposed to be the dead tributes in mutated form but I guess that would be asking too much of the special effects team. I did like Katniss' dress though.

Some scenes just didn't have the same emotional resonance as what I'd experienced when reading the book. This was probably a time thing. They didn't let the Rue/Katniss relationship to develop (Rue never got to talk about her love of singing, etc) so when Rue died, it was a bit... lukewarm. Same goes for the Peeta/Katniss relationship. Their whole "romance" in the cave thing as well as outside the arena took up a significant portion of the book but I feel like they just glazed over it in the movie.

The cat was the wrong colour LOL. How hard is it to find an orange cat? Jokes. Now I'm just being petty.

Things they really should have included in the movie:

Peeta's line after Katniss steps on him while he's camouflaged on the banks on the river. He says, "You here to finish me off, sweetheart?" Heh. Also missed out a bijillion other lines but I won't get into that.

When Clove threatens Katniss with a knife, Katniss spits blood in her face. Pretty badass.

The whole "kiss Peeta and receive food" thing Haymitch and Katniss had going on. In the books, Katniss really milked the relationship with Peeta for all it was worth. For her, it was all a facade - something she had to do to keep the audience entertained and stay alive. But obviously, she got emotionally evolved in the end. On the other hand, Peeta was actually being sincere when he said he liked Katniss and there was such a palpable sense of conflict and pain in the books over that. There's a very important scene near the end of the book when Katniss and Peeta are on the train travelling back home to district 12. Peeta finds out that the whole "romance" was just for show and that Haymitch and Katniss had actually been planning it behind his back. They never really communicated that in the movie.

The whole confusion after the game thing. When Katniss wakes up to find that she's all healed and she's crazy with worry about Peeta. And then they only get to see each other for the first time after the game when Katniss goes on stage for the interview. She runs into his arms, knocks him over and they full make out LOL. On live television too.

The ending berry scene wasn't done well. Didn't feel it. Didn't believe it for one second.

After Katniss sings to Rue after her death, the mockingjays were supposed to pick up the song and do a kind of interwoven, harmony loop thing that echoed throughout the forest.

Rue's district was supposed to send bread to Katniss as thanks.

Foxface died. Just like that. Not even a proper explanation about the berries. It was like, "Oh hey look, she's dead. The berries must have been poisoned. Oh noes! We nearly ate them! Oh well."

Characters that magically disappeared. Like Madge. Although actually, that was probably a good thing.

They glossed over some minor details. Like the appearance of the other districts' floats and the interviews for the rest of the tributes.

In conclusion though, I did like the movie despite its faults. Obviously, the books will always be fifty times more entertaining/resonant/heart-wrenching but I think they did a pretty good job with the resources they were given. Didn't hurt to have Suzanne Collins as the script-writer either.

To end off, here have a picture of the tributes in Vanity Fair.

Kind of makes you forget that everyone ends up killing everyone else LOL.