Saw it twice this weekend.  Not only because I always did want to see it more than once, but also because I wanted to like it more than when I saw it the first time.  Does that mean I didn't like it the first time?  Not at all.  I'm already blaming my problems with it on simply my own nitpickiness.  Of wanting too much of the book.  And though the movie had PLENTY of the book, it just had so much of the book that the scenes felt a little....watery.  Diluted.  In other words, they put so much into it for seemingly the sake of including it, instead of adding the necessary weight to make it work.  That's why, despite the length of the movie, it felt rushed and short anyway.

Makes me wonder why they chose to leave out certain bits and not others. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but it's almost as if I'd rather have less scenes from the books in the movie if the scenes that ARE in the movie carry the exact same emotion the book does.  If they don't carry that emotional weight, then what's the use of including them?  I'm aware that I'm in the minority, though, because it seems that many fans of the books are still loving the movie regardless of what's missing.  And I guess I can very easily feel differently if the opposite were the case.  That too much was left out of the movie that was in the book and that it doesn't do justice, etc etc.  But I can't really say since that isn't the case.

Anyhow, despite my being aware that I'm being nitpicky, I'm going to state my problems anyway.  But to be fair, I'll state my praises too about The Hunger Games.  As is usual for my thorough long-as-hell movie reviews, I'll start with the good, bad, and the ugly, mostly for the sake of expressing my thoughts on the movie, even though I still loved it.

THE GOOD

Characters. As in, pretty spot-on representations of what I visualized in the book.  My favorite on-screen character, as far as accuracy goes, was Prim.  Though her role was of course smaller than that of Katniss, I really felt for her during her every bit of screen time.  That little girl gave me chills...made me REALLY feel like she was going through what the movie and book depicts.  What an absolute PERFECT Prim. Gale was well-done too, though a bit underdeveloped to my liking.  Still, he is the spitting image of what Gale was in the book. I was troubled by his lack of an ALMOST declaration of love for Katniss just as he was being pulled away from saying goodbye to her, however. I suppose it won't hurt much, though.  Rue was definitely how I pictured her too, from her size to her sweet, innocent voice.  There were still issues I had with her in other ways, to no fault of the actress, but I'll cover that later. Effie was another bit of perfection.  She was exactly how the book describes, and almost freakishly so.  So chipper and flamboyant, never full realizing the pain of the tributes. Haymitch was another well-done character, as far as looks and personality goes. But just like Rue, I have other issues to no fault of Woody, which I will cover later as well.  Cinna was just....flawless.  A great-looking man portraying a gentle character.  There was nothing that went wrong with him at all.  I just wish I saw more of him.  Last but not least, Katniss.  Though her character was described as skinny and slim, I still think Jennifer did an amazing job bringing Katniss to life.

The Reaping.  And I actually didn't really see the beauty of it until my second viewing.  At first, I was bothered by the lack of a music score during a majority of the scene. I'm such a music score junkie, that when I don't hear it during a dramatic scene, I find it dull.  And The Reaping, in my opinion, should be VERY dramatic.  So it was odd not to hear anything to enhance that for me.  But my second viewing helped me realize that the quiet of the scene was exactly as how the book describes, and exactly how it's supposed to be.  It's supposed to be so quiet that you can hear a pin drop. And I think the lack of score made it work so much better.  It helped me feel the fear depicted by not just Prim, but also Katniss. The haunting silence of it was very effective.

Pre-Arena.  Katniss shooting the apple? Perfect.  And I am so GLAD she said that infamous line, "Thank you for your consideration."  The chariot scene was perfect too, from the costumes, to the fire, to the score. True, I wish there was a little more time spent on preparation of it, not just with District 12, but the other Districts.  I would have loved to get to know the other districts before the arena.  But I suppose it was more important to see the flaming suits anyway. The interview was great too.  I am actually surprised they kept Katniss' spinning dress moment too. Even sort of surprised they kept most of Peeta's interview, including the confession of love, even though Katniss' face being on the capital's camera after the fact would have been nice, something to magnify her disapproval of his actions. The training scenes were great too, though a little more focus on specific districts to hone in on their skills wouldn't have been too bad to see. Bleh.

The Arena/Environment.  The LOOK of it was very good. But then, how difficult can it be to film in a forest?  Though the appearance was accurate, I was disappointed with other factors about the arena, but I'll get to that later. I loved the quiet tension before entering the arena from the glass tubes.  The eerie humming sound that likely haunted our character as a sort of nasty reminder that they will no longer be in the safe haven of the capital and are entering their probable deaths. It so worked.

Capital.  The look of the city was...in a word, extravagant.  Very futuristic and filled with weird-looking people. It would have been cool to see futuristic things being used at random moments, especially since that's what the book describes at certain situations, but alas, you can't have everything.  The general futuristic theme was there at least.

Arena Cannons/Anthem.  EXACTLY how I imagined them, as far the look and sound of them.  Too bad they were underused. But more on that later.

Rue's Death. Pretty well-done. Slightly different from the book as far as execution, but it still worked and the acting was superb on both of their parts.  Having her death be felt from her perspective, the with the light beyond the trees getting brighter and brighter before finally fading away was a touch of genius.  

THE BAD

Anthem. From what I can remember, there was only one usage of the anthem. I suppose the repetitious usages of them weren't really necessary since they merged the Anthem with the cannons, but still. The Anthem was always meant to share who survived and who died.  The cannons announce a death, and the Anthem shares who it is.  The Anthem was also meant to be a distraction for the tracker-jacker scene, which brings me to my next complaint...

Tracker-Jackers. Not at all what I envisioned them to be, especially since she all out described them as being "larger than wasps, and gold."  I imagined them to be monstrous (so to speak), lethal insects that poison you and TRACK YOU DOWN in vengeance for bothering them, hence their name.  Not giving them that hunting aspect made the "tracker" part of their name utterly useless.  They were supposed to be much more deadly and menacing.  Glimmer falling to them was accurate enough, despite the lack of slimy skin falling off her bones, but the other tributes that ran off from them were supposed to be hurt by them also.  Those wasps weren't meant to be a joke.  But alas, I was given regular-looking wasps with a slight golden color that didn't do anything but sting you.  Sure, excessive stings are deadly, but even that can apply to regular wasps.  Like that stuff doesn't exist already?

Katniss and Cameras. She wasn't conscious of them as much as I expected.  In the book, she was always aware of them, always made it a point not to show weakness in front of them for the sake of her family. She wanted to always give them hope that she can truly survive the Games.  Thankfully, she at least acknowledged them after Rue's death and did the 3 fingered gesture to them, but that was pretty much it.  One of my favorite aspects of the book was always when she tried hard not to lose focus of the task at hand: surviving.  Showing no pain, whether it's physically or emotionally.  You never really see her family watching her beyond maybe a few seconds worth.  In a way, I wanted a lot more "Truman Show" aspects to it, where it's still obvious that what we're seeing is the perspective of what everyone else is seeing on their TV screen. But there just wasn't enough of that.

Cornucopia. It was ugly, not at all like the book describes, which was a metallic gold. I visualized something vast, maybe even beautiful, like one of those decorative table pieces for Thanksgiving.  This one looked like a rocket built by highschool kids or something.  Looked out place. No, it's no big deal, but why change something like that when it's simple just to leave it how the book says it is? No reason at all.

Avoxes.  Their existence in the movie likely wasn't needed, but to me, it certainly would have really magnified the sadistic, evil nature of the Capital if you displease them, thus giving them an even bigger reason to be hated.  It also would have made Katniss's utterance of having her tongue cut out have more weight and meaning.  That having your tongue cut out really is something that can happen.  But I suppose the mere Hunger Games at all was reason enough to hate the Capital.

Haymitch vs. Katniss. Not enough tension!  They got along remarkably well in this movie, save for maybe one or two little occasions.  The lack of tension made it seem like Haymitch was being a little too cold towards her by saying she isn't lovable or desirable or whatever else. I found myself thinking, "Well, WHY isn't she desirable?" Now thankfully, Woody Harrelson's a genius actor and he did pull off the character of Haymitch extremely well, as I mentioned earlier, but without him being all drunken and disgusting almost all the time, as the book says, there really isn't a reason for Katniss to be at his throat either.  It didn't balance out well to me. 

Muttations.  They weren't SO so bad, but eh...I was expecting more of how the book depicted them.  Intelligent, thinking creatures.  With human eyes. Wasn't really necessary, though.

THE UGLY

Rue's Lack of Development. While the actress, look, and voice were PERFECT, her development as a crucial character was sorely misused.  I never once felt a connection between her and Katniss.  I never once was given the impression that Katniss wanted to protect her as if she was Prim and I'm one who read the books! True, the impression was given that she maybe felt bad for her for being so young and cute to be in this situation, but that is NOT the significance in the book, at least not from my understanding.  In the book, Rue's innocence is supposed to be a personification of Prim's.  She's like a miniature Katniss trapped in Prim's body.  That's why, even after her death, Katniss' promise to Rue became even more important than her promise to Prim.  But in the movie, they just sorta...hung out for what seemed to have been a mere couple of days, and that was that.  It just seems like their placement in each other's lives was something out of mere obligation to follow the books, but without the necessary weight I felt was needed.  For instance, the mockingjay pin.  Katniss wanted to give it to Rue in the book.  In response to the gesture, Rue did something that I personally felt was a sneak peak into her heart.  She insisted Katniss keep the pin because it was a symbol that Katniss can be trusted and it gave Rue a reason to help her.  Their interaction was meaningful in the book, intimate even.  They taught each other how to survive using each other's tactics, shared their food, talked about their families.  But you never learn Rue's history in the movie, not even a little bit. There is no emotional back story.  And I think that is why I couldn't feel the connection with them.  Rue's story was supposed to...welll...break your heart, how no one volunteered for her in the Reaping, how she's the oldest of her siblings, and protected them like Katniss does.  How she sacrificed her own self for their benefit.  And here she is doing this in the age that Prim is.  It's a major, MAJOR reason why Katniss bonded with her. You don't even get a smidgen of clue as to how dire Rue's district is in comparison to Katniss's.  It was just SO important to get Rue right in this movie and, in my opinion, it didn't happen.  As mentioned before, they did get Rue's death right, at least, but again...I felt it would have worked even more perfectly if Rue was more developed than just a young kid caught up in the games.  Fortunately, katniss's reaction to her death was very meaningful, but that's just good acting.  

The Arena. It looked good and sounded good.  But all in all, it WAY TOO DANG EASY TO SURVIVE.  Katniss's first major challenge in the book was finding water. Heck, even in the movie it was meant to be her first major challenge, according to Haymitch. In the book, she doesn't find it right away.  She takes a long time to find it.  She travels for a few days to find it.  She contemplates returning to the big lake to get it, but she knew the journey back would certainly kill her.  She drags herself ahead into seemingly nowhere looking for something she isn't sure is close to being found.  She consciously looks up for a camera and says in a desperate, dying voice..."WATER."  The girl is about the die from dehydration just barely starting the Game and she knows it.  It was a smack to her face how DESPERATE her situation was, and how IMPORTANT it is to survive.  In fact, at one point, she chooses to give up and falls to the earth, ready to embrace death.  It was only when she notices that she's near some mud when she realizes how close she is. And even when she finds it, she STILL takes time to purify it before drinking.  Now granted, I don't demand every bit of this scene in the movie, but what I do demand is something equally dire.  But there was none of it in the movie.  I mean, even if it's just flashes of images that signify time passing, for crying out loud, I would have accepted that.  But yet, in the movie, it takes her all of...what...twenty minutes maybe? And she doesn't just find water. She finds the whole friggin' stream without even really being all that thirsty.  And I kid you not, when I saw how quickly she stumbled upon water, this thought crossed my mind.  "Oh. Well that was fast."  So much for a danger of dehydration.  Why is it her "new best friend" if it's seemingly so easy to find in the arena? You could tell that this arena, as well as all the others, was meant to be dangerous, because even the characters in the movie itself declared it to be so, what with most of them dying by natural causes like dehydration, infection from injuries, etc.  Um...seriously? Because the only thing deadly in the arena, according to what I saw on the screen, were the other tributes.  And heck, even they seemed to be getting along just fine.  They had a huge lake, a stream, a river, and all within a day's walk of everywhere else in the arena.  There were no bitterly cold nights, no storms.  No indication that the Capital can literally control EVERYTHING in the Arena, as was made very clear multiple times in the book.  There was just nothing that threatened their lives in the arena.  Just a forest with plenty of water.  Katniss also had the luxury of hunting easily instead of scraping away at berries and roots, and setting up fires to cook her meat, even though that was always risky in the book.  So risky that she often ate things raw whenever she could. Unfortunately, in the movie, it was just a whole lot of walking around and sleeping in a tree.

Lack of Drama.  At least during certain pivotal scenes.  This is totally what I was getting at when I first started this review, how the included scenes in the movie, while great to see, lacked the "meat" of emotional pull.  They were diluted and rushed.  I've already discussed Rue's presence. But there's more. For instance, Peeta joining the Careers.  It was always meant to be a surprise anyway, but in the movie, it was far too inexplicable.  In the book, what lead up to him seemingly ditching Katniss to join the Careers was something that was built up.  They agreed to be a team and enforced it heavily, until Peeta decides he wants to go solo. You don't really know why, but you suspect that maybe he doesn't want to get attached to her either, the same fear Katniss feels.  So while you'd never expect him to fight alongside her, you certainly aren't supposed to expect he'd side with the enemy.  Then BOOM, there he is, helping them, shocking her in the process, making her wish he'd die the traitor he is.  Tension.  You also find out why the Careers even tolerate him: he knows something they don't, and that's the strength and skill of Katniss. This notion isn't really explored in the movie, even though the general idea is there.  If I didn't really know what was going on, the regular moviegoer in me would have wondered what motivated Peeta to side with them and then NOT side with them.  But as I said, it's "diluted" from what it's REALLY supposed to be.  There's no rhyme or reason for it. In the movie, it just transitions from he is her teammate, then decides he no longer wants to be, then decides he loves her, then decides join the enemy's camp, then goes and hide by the river with a spear's wound.  Spear from whom? Why? How? And Katniss doesn't even seem very phased by it all. It's all so...meaningless on the screen. Other examples are the lack of apparent injuries suffered from everyone in the arena, but that's all relative to the arena being presented as not really too bad or deadly a place, as mentioned earlier. And still another example was the conclusion of the games, where Katniss and Peeta have to undergo major treatment from their injuries.  And Katniss expressed such passionate fear of losing him or never seeing him again.  Ugh, let's just put it this way.  Straight from the book, this quote pretty much says it all as far as how a tribute typically leaves the games: "There's usually a lag of a few days between the end of the competition and the presentation of the victor so that they can put the starving, wounded, mess of a person back together again."  And there you have it.  So to me, there was no such indication that the Games were really all that difficult to survive.  Lack of real major drama.

Peeta and Katniss. They didn't seem properly developed.  Or, rather, they seem to be developing in a way different from the book.  I have no idea how to explain it, however.  I just have a feeling the filmmakers (at the okay of the author, most likely) are causing Katniss to not need much influence in being affectionate with him.  It's as if they want to give her her own desire to start liking him, rather than do so at the suggestions of Haymitch as a means of survival.  I mean, it's a LITTLE bit there, but it just seemed off to me.  At the conclusion of the Games, for example, Katniss is encouraged once more by Haymitch to play the love angle to the camera, without telling Peeta, who is still under the impression that what Katniss felt for him was real.  But when he discovers that it likely isn't, he's crushed, and this in turn crushes Katniss, who is in constant conflict with herself about Peeta.  She's a typical female, overthinking a situation, confused over love, torn what to do.  And at the end of the book, she expresses a final fear of losing "the boy with the bread."  But none of that exists here.  It just seems like she's gradually just choosing him without being conflicted over it.  The Cave scene was all sorts of awkward. There's too much to mention about it, but I don't know.  It's just as rushed and void of emotion just the same.  

Hovercrafts. Sorry, I just didn't like not seeing them.  Only 2 tiny scenes of them? Not good enough. I was going to put this into the bad category, but eh...I feel too strongly about it.  In the books, their presence was actually a character all its own. They were like a symbol of finality.  Capture.  Dead or alive.  They'd use them to fetch any of the dead bodies of the tributes.  And whenever they were seen, the fellow tributes would know where to go if they wanted to track each other down. The Hovercrafts pretty much would give away the position of a fallen tribute, but also expose the living one that likely caused the death, thus creating more tension. You kill a tribute, you get their supplies as quickly as possible, and then you run like hell, because chances are, other tributes will seek you out when they know for sure where you are by the Hovercrafts.  Ahhh, but there ya have it.  Another reminder of the lack of tension.  I was told by someone who hasn't read the books that they were glad there were no hovercrafts, that their addition would have gave the movie too unrealistic a feel.  I say meh to that.  I say, they're in the books and they serve a purpose, especially later on in the series.

Shaky camera. I HATED THIS!! Supposedly the effect is done to add realism, but to me, it adds aggravation. There's some major things going down and I hate not being able to focus on exactly what.  That combined with random zooming in or out, quick flickers of images before moving on to another.  It made it all feel so amateurish and I didn't like that one bit.  This isn't supposed to be a "found footage" type of movie, so why make it that way?  Maybe here and there is alright, but during most of the movie?  Ugh I loathed it.  It didn't make the scenes being filmed anymore tense or dramatic.  Like the subject matter can't be dramatic on its own?  But I guess when the movie lacked the tension and drama it was meant to have, the director decided to resort to this method in the hopes of overshadowing it.  I don't know.  It was another factor that prevented me from truly connecting with what I was seeing.  How could I? When the tether to do so is being shaken and grabbed and yanked around?  I so hope I won't have to sit through such nonsense the next time around for Catching Fire.

All in all, it was a great movie, and none of these nitpicky complaints make me hate it.  They are simply my thoughts, but I love the Hunger Games too much to hate it, even despite whatever it gets wrong.  If anyone read this far...WOW lol.  And thanks.