If you're passionate about YA and you were passionate about the series, the movie was a big deal. It was something that was quite "different" at the time for the YA category (pushed a few boundaries not yet pushed--or at least to a large group of teens and adult readers of YA who had not yet been exposed to something like it). The movie was a pretty good rendition of the book. Not perfect, but not bad either. But I do think that, as usual, the book had a lot more depth and tension (and scenes) that weren't in the movie, so the experience of seeing the movie alone, as opposed to reading the books and then seeing the movie MIGHT leave the viewer less fulfilled.
Maybe. I just think that there were too many personal issues that I had with it. Purely personal and subjective, I know, but to me, given how horrifying the idea of the Hunger Games are, I felt like it was way too quick to gloss over the violence that would be involved. It just seemed to trivialise it all which, along with the too-convenient one-off changes to the rules, made it hard for me to have any kind of emotional investment in the characters. It's not that I disliked it, there were just elements that left a sour after-taste, so to speak. Maybe the book does a better job of addressing those matters though.
On a slightly related note, the last film I watched was Battle Royale. I had to, after watching The Hunger Games and hearing about all the comparisions to BR. Gotta admit, I personally preferred this one. Yes, perhaps that takes the violence too far, but I genuinely found it far more effective in terms how how it handled a similar theme. And that little girl in the first couple of minutes...talk about an emotional gut-punch! It still makes me cry and feel a little sick when I watch it.