Even when two people are just talking calmly, Ross jerks the camera around. Why? As the sense of danger increases, he has nothing to build toward.
- David Denby, New Yorker, March 26, 2012
The cinematic visualisation of the upper class of Pinem - is painted with a surrealist brush that Salvador Dali might have dropped (but).. falls short of expectations, registering a low emotional score despite all that is at stake
- Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile, March 24, 2012
Ross manages to keep the pacing remarkably swift, given that the games themselves don't start until halfway through the 144-minute running time.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, March 23, 2012
The Hunger Games lacks a compelling raison d'être -- it's not much of a class critique, and even less successful as an inter-generational study of how the young struggle against the old.
- Jason Di Rosso, MovieTime, ABC Radio National, March 23, 2012
The Hunger Games absolutely delivers for its target audience: younger teenagers. To them, it can be highly recommended.
- David Sexton, This is London, March 23, 2012
Like the select participants of its savage sport, The Hunger Games stands triumphant, if scarred and a bit wobbly from the contest.
- Scott Bowles, USA Today, March 22, 2012
It features a functioning creative imagination and lots of honest-to-goodness acting by its star, Jennifer Lawrence, who brings her usual toughness and emotional transparency to the archer-heroine Katniss.
- Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2012
Watching The Hunger Games, I was struck both by how slickly Ross hit his marks and how many opportunities he was missing to take the film to the next level -- to make it more shocking, lyrical, crazy, daring.
- David Edelstein, New York Magazine, March 22, 2012
The Hunger Games' pacing is brisk, its stakes as high as stakes get, and its leading lady engaging enough that the odds - at the box office at least - will be ever in its favor.
- Bob Mondello, NPR, March 22, 2012
Measured against its downright subversive subtext, you have to come away impressed by the level of achievement.
- Laremy Legel, Film.com, March 22, 2012
The first book of Suzanne Collins's prodigiously popular trilogy has been brought to the screen with a Jumbotron sensibility, a shaky camera to emphasize the action and a shakier grip on the subject's emotional core.
- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2012
An intelligent, thrill-quenching blend of sci-fi and satire introducing a welcome addition to the woefully small canon of admirable action heroines. Bring on round two!
- Rebecca Davies, Film4, March 22, 2012
Well-paced, well-directed and extremely well acted entertainment.
- Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com, March 22, 2012
Director Gary Ross' adaptation, co-scripted by Collins herself, isn't quite as crackingly paced as the novel, but it will more than satisfy existing fans of the trilogy and likely create many new ones.
- Dana Stevens, Slate, March 22, 2012
Viewers who like a side order of political allegory with their science fiction will find much to savor here. So will romantics, fans of feminist heroines and action enthusiasts. "The Hunger Games" is that rare creation, an event movie of real significance.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 22, 2012
Director Gary Ross generally avoids the elaborate exterior shots and special effects that dominate high-concept blockbusters.
- Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, March 22, 2012
The Hunger Games is a very enjoyable futurist adventure, presented with a compelling, beady-eyed intensity.
- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK], March 22, 2012
a triumph of restraint - but had the film been more visceral and less sanitised it might have better implicated viewers in the voyeuristic bloodlust of its entertainment
- Anton Bitel, Sight and Sound, March 29, 2012
I know we're supposed to tut-tut about levels of cinematic violence, but this seems to me one of the rare occasions when the film needed to be bolder, and nastier.
- Anthony Quinn, Independent, March 22, 2012
So terrible it might, with antiquity, become a camp masterpiece.
- Nigel Andrews, Financial Times, March 22, 2012
