I figured what better way to announce my official retirement from this site than in a review of the most recent movie I saw. That would be The Hunger Games. Now yes I realize that it has been a while since it came out on DVD and even longer since it was released in theatres but, for those of you that don’t know it, this movie was one of the greatest movies adapted to film that I have ever seen.

Now before the comments come in saying that there are events in the movie that do not occur in the book (isn’t that the opposite of normal) I would just like to note two important things about this. First of all, the book was written as a first person narrative from Katniss’ perspective. If the movie were to be filmed in this way, the role of Katniss would be done predominantly by voice acting because, unless she is looking in a mirror, she would not see herself. Also, it is important to include clips showing what is going on in the other camp. In this case, showing associations between Seneca Crane and President Snow added more to the story. I could have done without the scene at the end with Seneca Crane while I would have preferred that the movie portrayed the mutts at the end as more similar to their tribute counterpart. I think that in the end changing it to a night sky was a very obvious example of a pathetic fallacy and it gave the final confrontation with Cato a Disney-esque feel. As for how they truncated the portion of the book based on preparation and presentation for before the games, that was done well and it managed to include every important aspect of the sequence without dwelling on it too much.

As for a final rating, I am obligated to give it 8.5/10. It was a great movie and the editors did a great job of mellowing out the violence in a way that didn’t take away the sheer brutality of the whole situation, but several key aspects of the book are cut out while other portions go on just slightly too long. I do however rate Seneca Crane’s beard a 10/10 though because, let’s be honest, it’s just epic. As for my presence on this site, due to the fact that I am a college student, it would be too time consuming to continue using it regularly.

Final Rating: 8.5/10
Seneca Crane’s Beard’s Rating: 10/10