The biggest problem with turning a book into a movie is that you have to leave the things out that make you fall in love with the book in the first place. You don't like books for the cool action scenes with explosions - you like them for the dialogue and character development. Conversely, If I'm going to pay $10 to go to the movie theater, you're going for kick ass special effects. And by kick-ass special effects, I don't mean this. It's very hard to go into a movie about a book with an open mind. Also, it's hard to wrap your head around a society where kids killing other kids is something that everyone just goes along with.
In the books, I always felt like Katniss had this hard edge to her, like she never really trusted anyone, was always moody, etc. In the movie she was almost too likable. I wanted her to be more of an ass kicker. I liked when she roughed Peeta up after his interview, but her sobbing uncontrollably after Rue died just made me roll my eyes. I wanted her to go all "Eye of the Tiger" after that and get the point across that she hated what she was being forced to do and was going to make everyone pay that was a part of this atrocity.
There were plenty of things I liked about the movie, but for every thing I liked, they mucked it up somehow as well. The fact that they cut out the mayor's daughter was a good idea, because she's a completely forgettable character. However, they almost made the mockingjay pin forgettable as well. She was wearing it, but it was always covered up, and it seemed that only President Snow (who looked a little too much like Santa Claus for my tastes - when did Donald Sutherland get so pudgy?) made any note of it at all. For something that later on in the books becomes a symbol of the resistance, they didn't really build it up at all.
I loved that they used Flickerman (played by the always awesome Stanley Tucci) announcing the broadcast to narrate things like the tracker jackers and the minefield scene, but I felt they underutilized this tool. Because the whole book is written from Katniss' point of view, we're privy to her thoughts and knowledge of a certain subject. Obviously during the movie she's not going to audibly say "tracker jackers - their sting will cause massive hallucinations!" so using a TV broadcast to get this across is a brilliant move. I wished we would've seen more of the broadcast and the reactions of people watching the broadcast. Gale was shown watching (and not watching) at various times, but I'd have liked to see him be more visibly emotional about the whole thing, perhaps throwing something or storming out when Katniss kissed Peeta. Also, rather than show us a bunch of dug up dirt indicating the mines, they could've just used Flickerman narrating over some past footage of the mines being placed around the food. Speaking of Peeta, he came across as much smarter and more athletic in the books. In the movie, he looked like Will Forte's younger brother. The movie made a mess of the Gale/Katniss/Peeta love triangle, to the point where I didn't buy that any one of them loved any other one. I pictured the muttations to look more like werewolves than the dog from Ghostbusters, but I'll let that pass. The dogs were effective.
I liked the extra focus on the gamemaker, and the berries in the bowl at the end were an awesome touch. The scene where Katniss shoots the arrow into the balcony was very cool, as was just about every scene with Haymitch and Effie, who were both great. My only beef with Haymitch was that they started out portraying him as a drunken crazy man who knew what he was talking about, but by the end of the movie you never saw him with a drink. I liked the idea of showing him lobbying sponsors, but I wish we would've been able to hear what that conversation went like. That would've been an interesting way for the movie to expand on the original story by adding some of those elements that were outside the scope of Katniss' own personal experiences.
In all, I'd have to give the movie a solid B. There's definite room for improvement with the second movie, and I hope to see more of an omniscient portrayal of the Hunger Games Universe in subsequent films.
