Spoilers possibly ahead, although if you already read the books, you know it all already.

I saw the third Hunger Games last night. Movies are now starting on Thursday evenings … not even waiting until midnight. We saw an 8:30 showing. I don’t know why they do this, but I definitely prefer it to seeing midnight showings.

I’ve been to enough Harry Potter opening nights to know that the first step to seeing a crazy popular movie is to dress the part. I decided to go with this:

Katniss wears a lot of black, and she seems to like jackets so I choose a black quilted jacket thing. That was about the extent of my dressing up. I played it safe. I didn’t notice anyone else trying to dress up for this, so it seemed like my low risk outfit paid off. I don’t want to look like some kind of weirdo.

I did attempt to do the Katniss braid thing. It literally looked like I had a braid bobby pinned to the back of my head. I guess that was the look I was going for.

We got to the theater, and since this is a review, the theater was in excellent condition, which should be expected since it only opened this year. The lobby had lots of good treats including frozen yogurt. I was in a good mood to see this movie, which is a good thing because I had mixed feelings going in.

I read all the books, and for the most part enjoyed them, but I must be the only person who didn’t like the third book. To me, it seemed like the author didn’t quite know how to end the book, so just mashed together some things, like mashing socks into a drawer. I understand that they had to take over the Capital to end the series satisfactorily, I just don’t feel like the third went with the others. I am trying to think of why, but I’m having trouble putting it into words. Katniss just seemed very hands off. Even from the end of the third, it was more like she was an observer to the action, instead of being the initiator. Except when she was the initiator in ways that had flimsy, non-logical reasons. Basically, with the exception of her being the rallying cry, the entire story could (and would) have happened without her involvement. Because the invading army did the majority of the work, she was just kind of there.

I thought the other movies were good, so I thought maybe they would improve this one to make it better than the book. I also do like the Katniss character, and I like the other girl who was in The Tutors and Game of Thrones. That seemed reason enough to go see it.

It’s been a while since I read the book, but I think overall, the movie follows the book pretty well, with a few exceptions. Effie was in it, and she’s not in the book at all. The prep team was not in it. The movie actually shows the rescue of the tributes. President Snow now has some kind of assistant, not sure if she’s needed really, she doesn’t do much. I can’t think of any other major or noticeable differences. The visuals look how I imagined them from the book.

There was a lot of sad moments emphasized. The song Katniss sang in the book is in there, and I thought that was done well. There was some funny one liners, mostly from Haymitch and Effie. Beetee continued to be adorable. Gail came off as kind of a dick, which he is in the book, so that’s all right.

I didn’t think it really had enough emphasis on why Katniss wouldn’t like President Coin. They tried to make her character sympathetic and I don’t know how that will pan out for what happens in the next movie. Katniss seems indifferent to her one, and there’s no real reason explained for her not to like her, whereas in the book, I feel like they used the mistreatment of her prep team to plant the seed of doubt in her mind.

I knew the story line so I was expecting it to end right after the scene of Peeta attacking Katniss. I was ready for the movie to be over though. It kind of dragged towards the end. Apparently that’s what everyone else thought too, as when the screen went dark, the chittering and movement of people getting up to leave started. But wait, there’s more! Everyone sat down again quickly. The movie went on for a few more minutes. I don’t really remember the last scene so I don’t know if it was needed.

I liked the movie much better than the book, but as I said, I didn’t like the book that much, so it’s not hard for it to be better. My gauge for how good movies are is, would I watch it again?

The answer is yes, eventually. Certainly not going to go to the theater again though, like I did with the second movie. Perhaps in about six months. But I’d rather watch the second one again.