My first worry was that it would focus mainly on the love triangle and that it would just be a variation of the insipid Twilight movies. As it was, I think they did the love triangle really well. They showed it, but did not put it center stage. In fact I really liked how subtly they did it. They never really show Gale and Katniss as a couple, but more as good friends, but the jealously was clear in the brief moment we see Gale watching the Hunger Games and sees Katniss and Peeta together. I also liked how they subtly showed that Katniss's affection for Peeta was part real and part show. I though the brief note from Haymitch "You call that a kiss?" made it clear she needed and was putting on somewhat of an act, but her risking her life for Peeta showed she also cared enough to try to save him.
I was also worried that they might just make it into an action movie, where Katniss was just a totally trashing kicking super hero. If they had done that, I think it would have been completely contrary to one of the messages of the book, which was a critic on society's glorification of violence and the entertainment value we get from it. I liked how the movie made the violence disorienting and fast without being overly gory or bloody. I heard some people complain that it should have been more graphic to truly portray how horrific it was. I even read one review that said it lacked "moral courage" because it didn't make the violence more explicit. But I think that if even the very idea of these kids killing each other isn't horrific enough for you, then maybe you have become too desensitized to violence. I thought Katniss's actions in response to Rue's death were more than adequate to portray the horror of the violence.
Another thing that I thought was interesting regarding the violence of the movie is reading reviews and comments saying the whole premise of the hunger games was unbelievable. How could any society not only sanction kids killing kids, but also find it entertaining? Unfortunately, I find it very believable. I look at how much entertainment people (including myself sometimes) get from watching violent action movies. Or how many reality tv shows there are that are based on people taking advantage of each other and fighting and backbiting. I hear about places in Africa where children are being forced to serve as soldiers and were soldiers are told to rape woman and children of other tribes. I see how as a society we often see people from other countries as the "bad guys" and care a lot more about the death of people from our own country than the death of civilians in other countries. All these things make me think that a society that sponsored something like the hunger games is totally believable.
Another aspect I liked about the movie was how it told some back stories without taking up much time but with enough detail to help us understand what was going on. For example, the story of what happened to Katniss's father and what happened in the aftermath of his death was told in a comment made by Katniss to her mom as she was being taken away and then by a short flashback when Katniss was hallucinating. Also the story of Katniss and Peeta's encounter at the baker was told with few words and a few short scenes.
One final aspect I liked were the supporting actors. I thought Woody Harrelson did an excellent job portraying Haymitch as a man who tried to feign indifference and drank to forget about the horrors of winning the Hunger games, but who ultimately cared about the tributes and wanted to do what he could for them. I also though Stanley Tucci was great as Caesar Flickerman. He was the right amount of cheesy showman mixed with the right amount of awkward when troubling subjects came up. I also liked how the used him to do the play by play to explain things that would have been otherwise hard to explain outside of a book (for example, the description of the tracker jackets). I also like how they didn't do a lot of exposition about how Katniss's and Peeta attempting to eat the berries was spitting in the face of the Capital and telling it that they could not be forced to lose their humanity and kill each other.
And last and probably least, there were a few things I didn't like. I thought they did a good job of showing how poor district 12 was, but thought it strange that in the first scenes Katniss has such a nice leather jacket in such pristine condition. And the first 10 minutes was all shaky-cam and was kind of making me sick. I didn't mind it later in the action scenes, but the first part seemed like the camera man was just drunk and didn't add anything to the scenes.
So, just in case you can't tell, I thought the Hunger Games movie was very well done. I think even if I had set my expectations high, I would not have been disappointed. So go and see it. Unless you under 17-18. Then only go see it if you have read the books and have your parents permission and are smart enough to realize that is not cool when kids get slaughtered (some reviews I read reported being in audiences of teens where people were cheering when other tributes died)
