I should say this movie is probably not meant for me; it is meant for those who read and loved the books. That said, wow, what a piece of shit this was and it's a complete failure as a film for those of us who have not read the books. It is completely humourless, which would be fine if the drama had any sort of impact, but it doesn't and if you are going give this pseudo-Running Man/Fifth Element style to the world and the games, how do you not have anything to lighten things up? I suppose Banks and Tucci were supposed to do that, but their characters were flat and irrelevant (just like everyone else in the film) and I think a lot of it has to do with the horrible script containing completely flat, bland dialogue that has all been spoken before in films far better than this.

Lawrence is a dial tone, but again I'm not sure I can blame her considering the character she is given; there is nothing to the character and how I am supposed to be rooting for her is beyond me as there is absolute no impetus to do so! There is nothing interesting about her and the sudden character shifts make no sense (again, like so many other things in the film). There are elements introduced as if they are the most important thing to the story, then they are almost entirely abandoned later on for no reason and this is in a painfully long 2.5 hour movie; what a freaking waste of all that time! Oh and for an $80 million film with a pretty inexpensive cast, this movie looks terrible; the CGI is awful and it looks drab, even in the areas that are supposed to be fanciful and impressive.

How this piece of shit is over 80% in Rotten Tomatoes is absolutely dumbfounding; I can only assume the majority have reviewers have read the novels and therefore have some sort of inherent attachment to the material, but that does not make a good film! A film is an absolute failure if you need to read hundreds of pages of prose beforehand to get something out of it and that appears to be the case with Hunger Games. Complete waste of time.