The Hunger Games Movie – What I Didn’t Like

While I was invited to the premiere of The Hunger Games in NY on Monday night, the odds were not in my favor, and I went to see the movie on Friday. After we arrived we were told our show was cancelled due to a technical issue, but thank goodness we were able to slip in to another theater that had room around the same time. So before you read about what I didn’t like, you can check out our reviews on Optionated.com, BSCkids.com, and Boomtron.com as we all got in on the action.  Now listen, I have read all the books, I think the casting was overall a success and I really didn’t hate the movie, but it did not live up to the hype.  Let me explain how I felt after getting out of the movie which will be a bit all over the place.

The Cinna relationship with Katniss in the film…seemed a bit sexual and I didn’t like that at all.  Yeah I know it probably just had to do with the way that Lenny Kravitz played Cinna, but it just seemed “off” a bit.  I really liked the Cinna casting, but I felt that Lenny didn’t capture it well on screen.

Tracker jackers seemed weak, I know they were bred as weapons of war and after the war to keep the districts in line, but I pictured something a bit more menacing than a regular wasp with some cool poison and super attack range.  When I read the book, I pictured them more around the size of carpenter bees or something.

The wolf-like creatures mutts didn’t have looks of tributes at all, I don’t even think the ones in the book were on four legs?  These looked more like mastiffs or something along those lines.  Plus it was not conveyed to the audience of The Hunger Games movie that these were some sort of mixed DNA with the tributes that had already died.  The only thing that I saw was the fact that eyes of the mutts seems a bit more human.

District 12 looked one saloon away from a wild west city.  I know a few people who loved the setting for District 12 and some people like myself who thought it was a bit too wild west looking.  Not going to argue this on as I think it is just option of what you thought when you read the book.

I didn’t go back and check, but did Haymitch say “Sweetheart” so many times to Katniss?  If he did I must have just glossed over it when reading, but the way that Woody took such a tone change when he said it in the movie drove me mad.

I LOVED the look of the Capitol, but I just felt like they did not have a huge amount of technology, where in the book I really felt how advanced they really were.

This obviously goes along with the fact we don’t get the same character development in the movie, but I felt a little bored in the games themselves with Peeta and Katniss in the cave.   Maybe because in the book we have a bit more going on behind the scenes with the Capitol, but the movie seems to drag a bit around that time.  It may also seem weird to the movie person that Gale doesn’t go with her, when in the book we know a bit more.

The most telling part of The Hunger Games movie for me was the fact that my friend who saw it with me on Friday was also going to attend a Sunday viewing, and I felt bad for him.  “Can you really watch it again that soon”, I guess he can, but for me I’ll wait till it comes on television for the next time I visit Panem and The Hunger Games.