Hunger Games: In Review

Remember how I mentioned last friday I'd review my thoughts on the Hunger Games movie? Well its a week later, so its time. I've talked to many people about the movie, and for the most part all of their reactions are verbally very positive.

Pros: 
 Actor's who really knew their characters and were able to fill their shoes completely (one exception but I'll list that in cons)

I LOVED how they laid out the Capitol and those who played people from the Capitol were very accurate in how they played heartless people.

The costumes were for the most part how I had envisioned them and I loved all the various colors. Just wish I'd seen a couple more crazy looks like tattooed jeweled faces etc.

Effie Trinket and Caesar Flickerman were just how I'd envisioned them.

The layout of District 12 was exactly what I'd thought of it as as well as the map for the 74th hunger games.

The emotional sad moments were so deep and spine tingling involving the reaping. I cried twice before she even made it to the capitol. 

Prim was just perfect. Loved her. So small and sweet. And I loved the little moments they used to connect her being 'little duck' throughout the reaping.

Last but not least Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson were amazing. Plus the love triangle was just perfectly portrayed.

(funny to see their height differences)

Cons:
That one actor who I hated: Haymitch purely based on his inability to really portray a drunk. He was just too 'bubbley' and a happy drunk compared to what his character really was like which was surely, drunk, but still able. The actor himself wasn't my issue it was his acting. And he got sober too easily, in the book he was a lot harder to sober up.

Little things they could have just taken 30 seconds to do to be accurate. For ex. instead of just putting the berries up to their lips in the book they actually put them in their mouth. It would have taken less than ten seconds but because they were lazy they didn't bother.

Additionally Peeta didn't get hurt in the movie like in the book so they didn't have to give him an operation after winning. I wish they had done that correctly.

The musical score. After being spoiled by Harry Potter's amazing scores and even rather descent ones in Pirates and Transformers if you can even call that a musical score, I had a really hard time sitting through all the dramatic moments when all you could hear was breathing. For the first few dramatic moments I was ok that there was only heavy breathing, but then it got REALLY old. I was expecting more from the musical score and truly I think that if they had used music to their benefit than the sadder moments could have been sadder, and the more intense moments could have been more intense. There were even moments where I thought, "I am bored, it has lost my attention."

My absolute largest complaint with the movie as a whole was that it was not only inaccurate frequently (its hard to have a book based movie to be completely accurate) but the largest inaccuracies were with Katniss in the games. It seriously seemed like they left out some of the details of her struggles in the games to save time, but in all honesty it only made it seem like the games were too easy for her. She didn't have to even go without water at all, her ear drum wasn't burst, she didn't have a hard time finding Peeta, and she basically didn't leave the game with a stinking scratch except for the burn on her leg which was already healed. Her personal successes were made smaller by the fact she didn't struggle, so viewers didn't feel like she had to work very hard to win (via my husband who didn't read the books, and I filled in after the movie).

Between Katniss and Peeta being practically fine and surviving the games without really any issue I felt like they really downplayed the games and how much the two struggled which is really the entire point of the movie. 

Overall: I think I was just expecting so so much because I've read the series THREE times. I know almost every small detail so I was watching the movie nitpicking each thing that was inaccurate or left out. Don't worry, I went to watch it last night all by myself so that I could just sit and give it another chance. And of course I liked it better. Maybe its just due to my stubborn personality that I didn't want them to do anything but have the movie the way I had envisioned it while reading the book?

Either way they did a great job of explaining the story and capturing the interest of those who haven't read the book, like my husband. We will of course be buying it when it comes out.

Did anyone else have disappointments about anything in specific that they thought should have been changed in the movie? Or was it just me?