In the movie version of Suzanne Collins' popular trilogy, "The Hunger Games" is an action-thriller about a teenager whose life is put on the line in a nationwide contest of two dozen districts in a dystopian country where a government-controlled totalitarian regime runs in a seemingly-authoritarian fashion, which is in reality quite a bit of manipulation and trickery, while also keeping itself isolated from the rest of the world.
However, Collins and the movie's writers decided to make a lot of changes, the most notable of which was getting Katniss Everdeen, the main character, to be played by Jennifer Lawrence. This is a change from the original trilogy's Suzanne Collins, and the one who penned the books.
While it's unlikely that the "Hunger Games" film franchise will equal the success of "Twilight" (the first book outsold "Twilight" by 10 to 1 in the U.S., although the second book did better than the first in international sales), it still could be a solid hit with moviegoers, which is likely to be more important to Lionsgate than the book franchises. If they pull it off, then they can start selling the rights to all the other books in the series. In which case, you'll be seeing a lot more Jennifer Lawrence playing Katniss Everdeen.
I don't think I'd like the new Katniss, or the new movie as much as I liked the original. Sure, I had fun watching the first film, but it wasn't a very good movie. It didn't build to much, and there were parts that were just plain silly. In addition, the plot did move a bit slow, and was a bit of a mess.
The movie didn't do a whole lot to improve on these things. In addition, it wasn't as good as the book, which had more character development, an actual plot, some good action scenes, and I found the story more entertaining. With the first movie, I enjoyed watching the characters (especially Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson) grow, develop, and become more interesting. With the sequel, I wasn't particularly interested in seeing how much Katniss and Peeta had grown up, even if it was in a small way. It just didn't do enough to keep me watching it.
While the director, Gary Ross, did a fine job directing this movie, it's quite clear that Lawrence doesn't do much acting. The only time she actually looked really emotional was when she was giving her acceptance speech at the 74th Golden Globes. The other times, she looked bored, tired, or angry. This really bothered me, and it's probably why I wasn't too enthusiastic about this movie. I'd watch Lawrence in a movie, but I wasn't so interested in seeing her play this character.
I don't know if the story will end up being better in the third movie, but I have a feeling that if they really wanted to make it into a series, they would have just used the best parts of this movie and not make it a sequel. I thought that after the first two movies they had no right to call it a trilogy, but I guess with this trilogy people are just going to forget that we never really got a good story or the quality of the movie they made.
Overall, I give the movie "two thumbs down" and "I won't see the third movie." It was good for the first half and I wouldn't mind seeing it again. But if it were a movie series, I'd rather just start over with the first movie.