I think it stayed as true to the book as the length of the movie would allow. There had to be a lot of adapting to fit 500+ pages in a 2.5 hour movie.

That being said, I don't think they did a great job of conveying Snow's internal struggle. Love vs His Future. Human Decency vs Power. His Past vs His Present. He was CONSTANTLY torn in the book.

Throughout the book, you wondered how he would eventually turn "bad". His journey and eventual decision makes sense and doesn't seem quick and sudden. There doesn't seem to be an obvious character arc in the movie that shows his change.

At the end of the movie, Snow's "betrayal" and reaction towards Lucy may seem confusing and rushed if you don't have background from reading the book. You don't really know how much Lucy means to him and how shocking that ending should be.

It's a good adaptation, but it's definitely not the best Hunger Games movie!

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.

As someone who read the book days before seeing this film, I can tell you it should've been in two parts. I did thoroughly enjoy it! However, there are so many things that they left out that I felt were integral to the story. In order to properly see Snow for who he is-a spineless boy who only does things that look good to others-I think they needed to spend more time with the character. I'm not usually a fan of two parters, but this one really should've been. The characters fell flat to me because we didn't get great looks into them.

My boyfriend, who didn't read the book, really liked it and said he felt he understood the characters well enough though. So maybe it's just a me problem.

Because so much of the book is Snow's internal monologue, I know it would've been hard to capture that properly on film, but I think they could've. Also, it's SO much darker in the book, and I think that was necessary for the audience to see.