I have now seen the movie, and I really liked it. My biggest issue wasn't very big--I don't think Peeta looked right. He acted just fine, though, so it's a shallow issue. But he didn't look like the baker's son to me. And, on a flip side, Gale was a bit too big and conventionally hunky.
However--the movie got me when it was supposed to get me--I felt the sibling protectiveness, the civic unrest, the struggle to live.
The people I saw it with who hadn't read the books seemed to get everything that was important. I don't think there was any loss for them because of unfamiliarity with the book.
We saw the 9:40am screening, and the room was pretty full, and also pretty old.
I find it rather amazing that that's the actor's actual facial hair.
I find it rather amazing that that's the actor's actual facial hair.
It just seems fussily trimmed to me. What's exceptional about the growing of it?
Someone needs to put that beard on Abed, stat.
That they kept it like that, to that degree, for the entirety of filming.
Oh--right. An actual beef I had with the movie, apart from the reasonably trivial Peeta's look thing--the fight scene editing.
I guess it might have been to make sure they got the PG-13 rating, but when two brunettes are wrestling, or two blond men are fighting, that sort of choppy camerawork and editing are really confusing, and I'm already headachey and shit. I thought that was messy.
Given that they panned over a landscape of adolescent corpses at the start of the Games, come on. Show some punches landing. I could not follow those fights well, especially Kat's.
I thought the fight scene direction and editing was malpractice.
I really liked it and thought it was fine. I thought it captured the chaos and tension well, and I didn't mind that I couldn't follow each and every motion.
I don't have any complaints about the fight choreography/direction, because I couldn't see it. I assume it was serviceable, but they just had to make everything look like nothing, in case we thought teenagers were hurting each other.
eta:
I didn't mind that I couldn't follow each and every motion
I couldn't tell who was who, who had the upper hand, what they did to win. Basically, I couldn't follow more than one motion at a time. It didn't communicate anything to me except "conflict!" Which I already understood. The fight scenes were for elaboration.
