If you’re sucker for action movies, The Hunger Games, adapted from a novel, is definitely a #mustwatch! It’s the closest thing you’ll get to a 142-minute direct hit of adrenaline. And nothing, not even the frightful dress codes and hair styles in this movie, can put you off.

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, a slightly irritating Woody Harrelson that you kind of grow to love later, a sexy Lenny Kravitz and a nasty game; The Hunger Games will demand your attention from the start.

Jennifer (Katniss) lives in District 12. It reeks of poverty and the food there is tightly rationed. For a bite to eat, residents submit their names for a draw that picks two candidates each year and takes them to an arena where the only way to stay alive is to kill your opponents.

To spice up the game, the show’s producers tweak it here and there so that contestants cannot lie low, but have to go at each other’s throats to stay alive.

All the characters fit their roles perfectly, including Donald Sutherland (President Snow), who is the brains behind the outfit. (Not the bad dress code; the reality show).

In the brief training session before the games begin, the contestants are paraded in front of an audience in the Capital, gladiator-style. They then size each other up and prey on their opponent’s weaknesses, so that they kill them as the entire country watches.

Director Gary Ross, who helped write the screenplay alongside book author Suzanne Collins, did a sterling job patching scenes up and the story builds up to a crescendo before letting you breathe at the end.

Some of the hurdles were a bit too easy to overcome however, but the unexpected twists and turns in the movie plot make you easily forget that.

The Hunger Games is almost like a poetic depiction of the world we live in today, how those with money run it and the rest of us dance to their songs hoping to get at least a bite to eat.

I’d give it an 8 out of 10; and only because I had a hard time making friends on screen with Katniss. Watch it and leave your ratings in the comments box below.

Its earnings have so far topped Sh26 billion.