With swords flashing, arrows flying, and stomachs rumbling, The Hunger Games was an awesome movie. Jennifer Lawrence, who starred in the lead role of Katniss Everdeen, was perfect: tough enough but also emotional enough. The best thing about the movie, though, was that it corresponded closely with the book, which you don’t find in a lot of books that have been adapted for the big screen.

The Hunger Games takes place in a future North America that is in ruins. It is split into 12 separate Districts, each providing a different product (textiles, coal, etc.). Each year a boy and a girl, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are selected from each District and forced to fight to the death in a manmade arena. The arena has traps and can be controlled by the Gamemakers, engineers who designed the arena. This is done as a reminder of a revolution that happened years ago. A person may enter their name in as many times as they want to receive a bigger ration of grain and oil. At sixteen years old, Katniss Everdeen’s name is being entered into the drawing five times, and her younger sister Prim, who has just turned twelve, will be entered for the first time. When Prim is chosen, Katniss volunteers for her as Tribute, as she may have a better chance surviving the arena than Prim. Katniss is skilled with a bow and arrow and can hunt very well, having to provide for her family since her father died.

The big question of the movie: will Katniss survive in the arena?

At first I thought that the movie was going to be horrible compared to the book, as has been the case for films like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Cirque du Freak, and the Spiderwick Chronicles. However, for the most part, both book and film were alike. There were obviously differences because you can’t put everything from a book into a movie, so I was disappointed by some of the small details, but they didn’t change any large obvious details.

I really liked the beginning dash of the contestants to the Cornucopia, where all the weapons are stashed in the arena. I feel that the scene captured the rushed emotion and craziness of being amongst children who will try to kill you. The fighting was awesome; it was very well paced and captured the frenzied instinct for survival.

If there was one thing I didn’t like it was the depiction of the Careers. The Careers, youths from Districts 1 and 2, have been trained their whole lives to fight and kill and then volunteer at age 18. In the film, they were way too cuddly with each other. They would drop hints that they liked each other when they really would want to kill each other! In one scene when they were sleeping, they had their arms wrapped around each other. They didn’t seem that focused on killing quickly, and they made a game out of the competition, though I guess that’s what the government wanted.

Regardless, I give the Hunger Games a 9.9 out of 10, only because it didn’t come out any sooner.

-Robby Filec, volunteer as Tribute from District Clarion.