Not sure if you have seen Catching Fire but it is a massive step up from the original, Hunger Games is NOT a romance story at all that completely takes a back seat in the trilogy. Catching Fire shows you the bigger picture its more than just Katniss & Peeta. If only more YA books series could be like THG
While it may be a step up, it does not take away the fact that the cinematography was so terrible that I felt like I needed to watch something else immediately. The panning, the screening, the flashbacks. . . not to mention the film doesn't explain how children that have no clue how landmines work can disarm them, dig them up, then replant them; then in the same stroke, they mistake how close they placed them and the blast radius gutted their 'protected' stash of gear: "What happened?!" Yeah. Let's also not speak of physics either, and how little girls stay standing after spears hurled at peak velocity impale them. Yeah, no. While the series may be a huge hit with thousands (millions?) it doesn't interest me the least after seeing the horrible directing angles and the terribly misplaced castings.
It also didn't help the fact that several films that came out during the same year had done fairly well with their own casting and cinematography: Dredd, Django: Unchained, Flight, Argo, The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises (not my favorite of the three, but hey), Men In Black 3, and Lincoln. Part of the matter is the story was oddly familiar, but failed to grasp me because it lacked that 'oomph' that the Japanese had in their own Battle Royale.
When the Hunger Games and Battle Royale are stacked against eachother, the Hunger Games is painfully slow, dull and cliche. It takes nearly an hour before the games actually start and we're (me) introduced to a porridge of bland characters that doesn't make me ask "may I have another?". Now maybe the Hunger Games follows the book closely, I don't know, but I do know that Battle Royale isn't that far off it's mark in either of it's mediums.
It also helps that Battle Royale is not the happy, pretty, Dr. Seuss colour land that the Hunger Games is. The Hunger Games seems to go to great lengths to make you forget that these are kids killing kids. Battle Royale doesn't let you forget that these are kids, and that they're killing each other in the most brutal of ways., and to top it all off: Battle Royale did it a decade earlier. The book came out in 99', then film and manga followed.
Sure we had several other films and books that have a feel of the gladiatorial ring, but battle Royale and the Hunger Games are too similar to really be called a coincidence.
Long story short, I did not enjoy the film, would not recommend it, and definitely will not see the sequels. I gave it a shot and it blew it. . . loved Dredd though; one of the better 2012 films as one of the many 'book adaptations' to come out that year.
also finished watching Fargo "We go to pancakes house?" a quirky little number.