I watched this in the cinema with my younger sisters yesterday, all of us having reasonably enjoyed the Hunger Games books and bits of the movie series before this.
I think there were a lot of nice points about this movie - the setting felt pretty believable, the acting was generally good... but I think the story itself was a bit weak, and for some reason I was really turned off by all the singing bits.
In terms of the story, it was fascinating seeing the main character grapple with his concepts of what he knew was right and wrong, and what FELT right and wrong to him, but I think the female lead didn't really have any real development or much actual likeability - she felt like a pasted classic "good folk girl" kind of character, except for setting snakes on people?? I didn't really sense much chemistry with her and Snow's characters, because it didn't seem like they even any notable spent time together, and her disappearance at the end, leaving the snake to attack him, felt so strange. Why did she waste time setting up a nasty trick like that, if it wasn't going to kill him, and serve just to slow her escape down, and also make him hate her? Was she just trying to make some kind of risky point? I don't know, it just didn't really make sense to me.
And the singing... I can't say exactly what bothered me about it, but it just felt weird. I found the singing scenes long and kind of painful - I guess it didn't feel like someone in that setting sincerely singing, but someone from 2023 singing for a 2023 movie and pretending to add a folk kind of twang to it. She's a great singer, I'm not denying that, but it didn't feel like it fit with the setting somehow.
Overall, I guess the movie was somewhat interesting, though I wouldn't say "enjoyable". I wouldn't recommend it to friends, but maybe the book's pacing is better? I don't expect I'll be reading it though, unfortunately.
I think there were a lot of nice points about this movie - the setting felt pretty believable, the acting was generally good... but I think the story itself was a bit weak, and for some reason I was really turned off by all the singing bits.
In terms of the story, it was fascinating seeing the main character grapple with his concepts of what he knew was right and wrong, and what FELT right and wrong to him, but I think the female lead didn't really have any real development or much actual likeability - she felt like a pasted classic "good folk girl" kind of character, except for setting snakes on people?? I didn't really sense much chemistry with her and Snow's characters, because it didn't seem like they even any notable spent time together, and her disappearance at the end, leaving the snake to attack him, felt so strange. Why did she waste time setting up a nasty trick like that, if it wasn't going to kill him, and serve just to slow her escape down, and also make him hate her? Was she just trying to make some kind of risky point? I don't know, it just didn't really make sense to me.
And the singing... I can't say exactly what bothered me about it, but it just felt weird. I found the singing scenes long and kind of painful - I guess it didn't feel like someone in that setting sincerely singing, but someone from 2023 singing for a 2023 movie and pretending to add a folk kind of twang to it. She's a great singer, I'm not denying that, but it didn't feel like it fit with the setting somehow.
Overall, I guess the movie was somewhat interesting, though I wouldn't say "enjoyable". I wouldn't recommend it to friends, but maybe the book's pacing is better? I don't expect I'll be reading it though, unfortunately.