'The Hunger Games' Picks Up Positive Reviews

By Ivana Kvesic, Christian Post Reporter Friday, March 23, 2012

The new film, "The Hunger Games," hit theaters Friday and , overall, critics having been giving the film positive reviews.

Moria MacDonald of The Seattle Times said that the visuals in "The Hunger Games" were striking and credited the film for managing to carefully walk "a difficult line" by telling the story of violence without glorifying it.

"'The Hunger Games' works almost better as a movie than a book," MacDonald added.

"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," movie critic Amy Biancolli of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote of the film.

"Viewers who like a side order of political allegory with their science fiction will find much to savor here," Colin Covert of the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote.

Many fans have also given "The Hunger Games" good reviews via social networking site Twitter.

"I just can't pick one favorite scene. I thought the whole movie was great," Twitter user @BalancingAct_ tweeted.

"Couldn't have been better.! It was amazing! I really felt it and I was so happy w/ how it was adapted," @stinemarielucas wrote.

The movie is based on the best-selling trilogy The Hunger Games, by author Suzanne Collins.

The book is set in a future North America in a place called Panem, which is ruled by a totalitarian regime. Many critics view the books as a social commentary on the atrocities of war, but also on American infatuation with reality television and conflict in general.

The young adult science-fiction novel was first published in 2006. It has sold over 800,000 copies and landed on The New York Times Best Sellers List 100 times.

Just last week, ABC Family scooped up the television rights to the film, but the network will have to wait 30 months after the film's release to air it.