The Hunger Was Not Satisfied - By Matty Jacobson

Matty Jacobson is owner, operator, editor and
contributor to The Skewed Review. Questions,
comments, hate mail and spam can be sent to
Matty@TheSkewedReview.com. 

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT -- The much anticipated adventures of Katniss Everdeen have finally come to the big screen, and it took me almost 48 hours to put my finger on the reasons I didn't like the adaptation of "The Hunger Games."

Now before anyone goes reporting me to the Peacekeepers or lacing my food with nightlock berries, please allow me to explain.

As with any book-to-movie adaptation, it's hard to fit everything from the original story into the script. In fact, I've only read one book in my entire life where the film adaptation was lifted almost scene-by-scene with verbatim dialogue. But even that story left out an itty bitty piece of the final scene. (The book and movie is "Rosemary's Baby," by the way.)

So it didn't surprise me that "The Hunger Games" took some liberties when it came to scene and character trimming. But essentially, every crucial piece the book was in the movie--plus a few additional scenes to show the audience the ins and outs of the gamemakers, as well as few menacing President Snow bits that painted a picture of his foreboding character for the audience.

I only wish the director and screenwriter (one of whom was the book's author, Suzanne Collins, herself) had taken more time with some areas. If you've read the book, then you'll know Katniss spends a good amount of time caring for one Peetah Mellark while in the games. I was surprised at how quickly that scene went by in the film.

And the tense cornucopia/muttation scene fell far short from what I'd expected. In fact, the muttations themselves were far from what I thought Collins had in mind. But apparently her descriptions of tacker jackers and wolves with human eyes were pretty much just regular-looking wasps and ordinary-looking dogs. I don't know why I assumed the mutts would be grotesque, scary, enhanced creatures that looked as menacing as they actually were.

But the biggest disappointment of all came in the form of the Capitol: there wasn't enough of it. I needed more Effie, dammit! More Effie! 

I think Suzanne Collins should do me a personal favor since I stood in line for four hours on a Thursday night to see her movie. I would like her to write a prequel that's based only in the Capitol so there can be a movie that's all Capitol all the time.

But otherwise, the film was pretty decent. Insert annoying smiley face emoticon here.