At this point, everyone with even a passing curiosity has probably seen ‘The Hunger Games’. It’s that kind of phenomenon.

That doesn’t mean it’s great, of course. It just means that the movies are a thin gruel in the late winter, and it’s the first event movie in a while. The film is also based on an implausibly popular Young Adult trilogy about kids forced to fight each other to the death, and who doesn’t love child gladiators?

‘The Hunger Games’ serves its purpose nicely, but it’s not an especially great movie. The film is competent on all fronts, and packed with actors who are a significantly above the material. There was clearly enough money in the budget for a good-looking film. You can’t fault the cinematography, and you can’t particularly fault any of the leads.

The problem with this movie is lack of vision.

It’s become a formula now, in the post-Harry Potter world. Take a popular YA series, shoot it as if the novels were Scripture, and then everybody buys a boat. It makes money, certainly. What this formula doesn’t make is cinema. Movies are not projected books.

It’s the curse of fandom. Fanboys and fangirls will watch your movie. They will watch it many times, if it does exactly what they expect. They will also turn on you with the fury of a thousand suns if their expectations are not met. Leave out some turgid dialogue, drop a couple peripheral characters and prepare to enter witness protection.

“The Hunger Games’ doesn’t dare betray the source material, and that’s a mistake. It’s a missed opportunity.

When ‘The Shining’ was released in 1980, Stephen King was public about his disappointment. Kubrick’s movie was different from the source novel in dozens of ways, some of them pretty major. He was so unhappy, in fact, that he eventually made his own version of ‘The Shining’ for TV. King’s version is faithful to the book, but it blows. King has a long track record of making terrible movies out of his better novels.

Kubrick’s infinitely more cinematic variation on King’s theme, however, is probably the most revered horror film of its decade.

There’s enough social criticism and darkness on the bones of ‘The Hunger Games’ to make something great for the screen, but this is not that. It’s just fine,I guess, and everything you’re expecting happens. It even happens in the right order. Unfortunately, the draggy parts are represented as well, as is the dry-as-dust puppy love triangle.

THG is a serviceable time-killer, and it will make a squillion dollars, and the rest of the trilogy will mint money as well. Here’s hoping the director gets switched out for someone bolder, the way Chris Columbus got bounced from the Harry Potter series.

Good but not great, and reeking of missed opportunity.