The Hunger Games
I haven't read the books but understand they have a huge following. I only watched Battle Royale a couple of weeks ago but have known about the film and novel for some time. Whenever someone mentioned The Hunger Games it sounded like an Americanized, dumbed down version of BR. My intuition was correct. While the film wasn't awful, it just wasn't very good. No real sense of dread or danger. Thin, uninteresting characters. Weak script. I'm surprised it received so many positive critical reviews. The direction was uninspired. The few action scenes were poorly done, probably with some intention to obscure violence to cater to the PG-13 crowd. But still, this entire movie lacked style and originality, especially considering the type of world and story they were trying to tell. Just another half-hearted Hollywood adaptation to cash in on the popularity of the books.
6/10