The Hunger Games: Movie of the Year, or Slow-Starting Time-Waster?

Virtually everyone has heard of The Hunger Games and it’s no secret that everyone’s anxious to see it if they haven’t already. If they have, it is “without a doubt the best movie of the year.” Or so people, myself included, are reading on friend’s and relative’s Facebook pages.

I never thought I was one to follow the crowd when it came to movies. And if I did, I always had one rule. Read the book first. So I tried. I couldn’t do it. I got to chapter seven and I failed, but that could just be because it’s hard for me to get into a book seeing as I personally am very picky when it comes to the written words of what I like to call the “magicians of the writing industry.”

But absolutely everyone was raving about The Hunger Games, so I decided to break my rule. I saw it – without finishing the book.

I’m sitting in my chair, watching as I try to decide what makes this movie so magical and so rave-worthy. It's about half of an hour into the movie, and I start questioning some of my friends, wondering why they’ve fallen head-over-heels for this film with its slow start and lack of drama. I keep thinking how this could possibly be a total waste of time for me. Just as I decide to stop watching and rethink my faith in humanity – BAM! It starts. The fighting. The dying. I sit right back down, and I watch. Emotion. Survival. Love. Hate. The acting was phenomenal. They couldn’t have chosen any better than Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence to play the epic hero and heroine. The script was also tasteful, even though the beginning was slow. I feel like Katniss Everdeen chose her words amazingly when it came to talking to her sister, Primrose. There was everything you would ever want in a movie. Yet, for some reason, my breath was not taken away.

No, The Hunger Games, in my opinion, is not without a doubt the best movie of the year. It’s not even the best movie I’ve seen all month. Was it good? Yes. Was there drama? Of course. But I feel that I would have liked it more if I had not have been reading amazing reviews from my friends about how it’s the best movie ever.

To sum it up, The Hunger Games is a good movie, but it was not at all what I had expected to watch. If you want to see a film filled with surprises and action, The Hunger Games is the movie to see – as long as you don’t mind sitting in your chair for almost an hour wondering where the plot is.