From book to screen
So I’ve seen The Hunger Games movie this weekend, and I am pleased to tell you that I did like it.
It is not like the best movie ever, and I don’t know if the impact was similar for the people that haven’t read the book yet, still the producers managed to do a wonderful job at portraying the complex story from the book series. Of course, there were some things left out (which is perfectly normal in these cases), there were some changes here and there (some for the best, some not so much), but overal it was a great ecranisation and I would gladly watch it one more time, or even several more.
I will start with my one and only complain – the camera shakiness.
Oh, dear, I am sure the director though it would be such a great effect, but it made me dizzy and it got on my nerves at some point.
Really, I wanted to kill the person holding the camera and then put the freaking thing on a steady ground. One part of my brain was screaming to my eyes “focus damn it, just focus already!” and you see, when the screaming gets too loud it’s quite hard for me to be able to concentrate and enjoy the scenes.
Also I had a bit of trouble with the soundtrack (for example when Peeta confessed his crush there was this silence that could have been filled someway to make it all more dramatic), but I’m a music freak so it might be just me.
Now to the good stuff:
The acting – I still don’t think some of the actors resemble the characters I had on my mind, but their acting was really great (think about Effie’s annoyance for example, and then think about Rue, and Prim, and President Snow, and Haymitch, and Seneca, and also the main characters and the other tributes). I really shouldn’t have been worried about their acting skills as they were all amazing.
The fluidity of the story – some say it was rushed and compared to the book it would definitely feel like that, still except for the ending (and the cave scenes), I liked the pacing. It didn’t dragged too much, but it showed enough to understand what the story was about. They had to make some changes, but not all of them were as bad as some people made them sound.
Take the pin for example. Yes, they took Madge out of the picture, but the moment when Prim gave back to Katniss the pin for good-luck in the games was so heartwarming, it almost made me cry.
The visual effects – I loved the world created – the scenery from Panem, the control room, the avenue of tributes and so on. The people living in Panem were as colorful as I’ve imagined them and as contrasting with the people from other districts.
Scenes I liked – The goodbyes, the ones showing Peeta’s skill, the tracker jacker, the flaming dress, the fire balls, and a lot more 🙂
I could go on and on about the movie, but I think I will stop now. Be free to share your impressions with me, as I bet I will remember a thousand things I should have said about the movie in this article, LOL.
And if you haven’t seen it yet.. what are you waiting for? Go see the movie if you liked the books – in fact I think it might appeal even to some of the people that have nothing to do with the book series.
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