Set in a dystopian society, The Hunger Games is what Twilight never was—fast paced, exciting, tough, and featuring a heroine that could not be further from Twilight’s droopy, lovesick Bella. However, trying to compare the two wouldn’t be right. For one, while Twilight was a romance filled with warring werewolves and vampires, The Hunger Games is a novel about children killing each other and groups of wealthy men with blue-skinned talk show hosts.

The whole story is set in a futuristic world named Panem. Panem is then divided into 12 districts that become progressively poorer the farther they are from the Capitol. The novel introduces a kind of heroine that has not been introduced to the teen movie franchise for a while—a tough, aloof girl with archery skills that could kill.

The movie starts off in District 12, the coal mines where the heroine, Katniss, and her family live. Katniss is played by Jennifer Lawrence who has already made a name a name for herself when she played a tough, Ozark Mountains girl in the 2010 movie, Winter’s Bone. The performance earned her an Oscar nomination.

However, Oscar nominations don’t cut it with obsessive teenage fans. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss with an attitude that people watching her would think that she was actually the character. It’s fascinating to watch Lawrenc etake on a persona so different from the ones she had done before.

The same cannot be said about the other two main characters, Peeta and Gale, played by Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth respectively. Hemsworth’s character is in the movie about five times. And the majority of the time, he is silent. The most interesting part about his role is when he does speak, it sounds so American, that you could never have guessed he was from Australia. Other than that, anyone could have played Gale.

Hutcherson plays Lawrence’s love interest—a role I found interesting since most everyone remembers Hutcherson as the baby-faced kid from Zathura. However, he played his character with a sort of genuine boy-next-door charm, a quality that many fangirls adored.

But The Hunger Games is not all gold stars and high fives. There are parts where reality comes into question. For example, in the scene when Katniss jumps out of the way of a flying spear, it embeds itself into Rue’s chest, a minor yet important character. The problem with the scene however, is that it looks too unrealistic. The spear barely goes two inches deep and the bloodstain covers her entire body. If the spear really had pierced itself deep enough to kill her, why then, would sixteen-year-old Katniss be strong to pull it out with one hand with one try?

Another issue I had with the film was the cinematography. It seemed that whenever Gary Ross spotted an opportunity to make the movie seem more suspenseful and exciting, he started shaking the camera around. Warning: those with queasy stomachs should stay away from the first five rows in the theater.

All in all—though not quite living up to hype it had created—The Hunger Games is a fairly decent adaptation of the novel. It includes the best parts of the novel but the emotion of the story left a little to be desired.