The Hunger Games

I liked the Hinger Games very much, the problem with it though, is that can't really be true to the book and still get a PG rating. Ah, the all important PG rating-it's the reason all those 10-year olds were at a movie that wasn't really appropriate for them (and were running around screaming before it started. Yes, it annoyed me, mainly because if I'd pulled that at a movie with MY parents, they would never have taken me again).  Ahem. Well, did Jennifer Lawrence look like Katniss? I thought not-she looked a little too old and was not the small, skinny girl I pictured. However, she more than made up for it with her performance. And Josh Hutcherson was quite good as Peeta, although it did seem that Jennifer was much taller than he, which I thought was quite funny. And I'll say this-ALL the supporting players were good. Elizabeth Banks in her outrageously flashy clothes, Woody Harrelson as the drunk who helps them survive, Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, the stylist who becomes Katniss's only friend in the city-all were good. And a special shout-out to Stanley Tucci, who seems to be able to anything-is there a part he can't play? And of course, Donal Sutherland, always good at playing the bad guy. And I really liked adding in the background to the Games-you now see the Gamesmaker and the people who work for him, you see that the fire IS created and that, indeed, everything is carefully planned-except what Katniss and Peeta do at the end. But here's the thing-I really wanted it to be violent. The books are quite violent, and the end of The Hunger Games is not only violent, it's emblematic of the whole horror of what has happened throughout the whole book-and they watered it down. Watering down the end really does a disservice to the book and it was all to get the PG rating. I find that very disheartening.