ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Omer Levent It is not a series to be understood from the other movie of the series first. I can not say that I like Jennifer Lawrence and I like her acting. But it could be a good athlete. It is quite obvious that the author is inspired by which films, books and ideas. I like the world so much. It was a fluent film that could be watched with excitement. It was a film that had remarkable characters but did not smile at the pros. The stereotypes did not sink. This is a series I like.

Michael Ledo All science fiction futuristic societies are written to have a message about the current day. This is normally contained within the text, or a line someone speaks. The movie starts giving us some background for the games, but we don't know why there was a rebellion in the first place, something that is in the book. The rebellion resulted in a lottery where teens from the various districts must now compete in a survivor battle to the death, all for the entertainment of the audience. Early in the film we hear, "If no one watches, we won't have a game." In other words if we stop watching reality TV shows, they will be taken off the air...not exactly a bad thing.In those other films the evil of society had been either, capitalism, socialism, the super rich, corporations, religion, or science. The irony of the film/book is that it makes fun of the viewer/reader for enjoying it. They are the problem with today's voyeuristic dummy down society, which like the movie can be divided into two groups" Those who see the movie/games as entertainment. And the intellectuals who realize the metaphor contained within. I'm loving it! (Pardon my pop culture response, but it seems apropos.)There is a stark contrast in wealth and dress between those who participate in the games and the society who runs them. However, it is those who participate who ultimately empower those who run them, just like with war, the second message of the film which dates from Homer "War is old men lying, young men dying."Jennifer Lawrence, who I thought was Oscar worthy in "Winter's Bone," immediately becomes our heroine when she volunteers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games. We don't expect her to die anytime soon. As the fighting begins I kept wondering if they were going to simply fight for everyone's entertainment or are we going to get a Captain Kirk/Agorn moment when he has defeated his opponent and refuses to kill him shouting, "You are going to have to get your entertainment elsewhere!" Or maybe we could end it like "Death Race 2000" where Frankenstein kills the president...but I am getting way ahead of myself.The victims, or tributes as they are called, are paraded and cheered having done nothing...similar to reality show TV "stars." (Yes I mean you talentless Snooki.) People wildly cheer because...they can. Woody Harrelson helps to bridge the time from when Jennifer Lawrence is selected until the fighting begins. Donald Sutherland appears as an unrealistic unlikeable President Snow, a composite character representing the evil of society. There are interviews and pageantry prior to the games during which time we get to know more about Jennifer and very little about the other contestants. It would have been nice to have known some of the quirky combatants and have them killed in ironic ways to their character, but maybe that was too much to ask about a film about shallow entertainment.Jennifer, with her honesty and rebellious attitude has become the fan favorite and our favorite because she is the only contestant that we know. She lacks the killer instinct...until she must. Alliances form and everyone wants to get the fan favorite aka Rambette Jennifer Lawrence, who did an excellent job to give girls a heroine being both a compassionate woman and a huntress. Like all reality TV shows, when the drama starts to fade the program directors add an element to push it in the direction that they want.No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. "Safe" for kids to watch.

dex-72791 This is a terrible adaption of the Hunger Games book. So many details are left out which makes the plot bland, boring and simplistic. Characters don't develop bonds and relationships, it just happens. When a character feels remorse it makes no sense because they haven't developed a relationship, they were just allies for 20 minutes. The first thing you see when the movie starts is boring text explaining what the reaping is and why the have the hunger games. So straight away they throw the rule of show don't tell out the window from the top floor. Its just so lazy. And its completely pointless anyway as it is explained again in short film that all the tributes watch. The pacing of this movie is also unbearable. Things just happen one after the other. Even the dialogue is lightening fast a lot of the time. Its hard to keep up with the conversations. The plot itself is somewhat interesting, but it is completely watered down to the bare minimum in the movie. Many key details are skipped over and ignored and I can only imagine this movie must be so boring and confusing for anyone who hasn't read the book.

Johnny H. The Hunger Games has become a household name in pop-cultural life, and this film is an entertaining introduction to a broadly-appealing yet well done dystopia not too far off the brutality of Battle Royale or The Running Man. It's not Twilight (thank Christ for that) and thankfully it's got a better romantic triangle than any of that vampire hogwash had going for it.This series is like a millennial-appealing take on other sci-fi dystopias ranging from George Orwell's 1984 to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; where those stories explored totalitarianism in more subversive ways this one shows how extreme things can get when violence is thrown into the equation.Considering this came out in 2012 and people are STILL saying whether or not this ripped off Battle Royale I think that those addresses are fair, and that it doesn't suffer from the pre-established derivativeness of something like Divergent (which apparently carbon-copied the story so much the films themselves were distributed by Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment).Anyway, this film is an adaptation of a book that was craving a movie based on it, and it's a good action flick focusing on young men and women trying to survive the worst to-the-death scenario you could possibly imagine.