I loved the book, not as much the movie (it was an OK adaptation, but not stellar IMO. The satire aspect wasn't nearly as strong as in the book) perhaps because I read the book long before tracking down a copy of the movie.

I reacted exactly the way you did when I heard about HG (never heard of the books until recently), rolling my eyes and all.

However, I hear more and more reviewers very familiar with Battle Royale who are saying it merely uses the same basic starting idea but it's a mistake to think of it as a simple rip-off and rehash of BR (or King's The Running Man, which IRRC predated it), that it's a lot more to offer on its own than that (one reviewer said it's not even comparable to say, Gattaca vs. Brave New World, in terms of just rehashing ideas). So far all the reviewers I expected to shred that movie apart are saying many positive things about it - speaking of its intelligence notably, and about the book series as well. They also say it has just as much social relevance in today's US as BR had in Japan at the time (though they say that aspect is secondary to the fact it's a well told story with a interesting central character, that the fact it doesn't insult the intelligence of the viewer either is just a big plus).

They've made me tempted to watch it, though I'll most likely wait for home release.

Having only the reviews/commentaries to go by, what I'm puzzled about is how that movie, and it is made for the YA crowd at that, is acceptable whereas Battle Royale got banned and with much fuss at the time (I ended up tracking a HK release that had English subtitles, but after I had seen the movie in Japanese w/o ST). I know BR got banned from US (and therefore Canadian) distribution on the argument it wasn't an acceptable premise for a movie after Columbine (or was it another school shooting, can't recall for sure) the concept itself, not the graphic violence for which BR is hardly a summum - and BR still isn't allowed for distribution/showing in the US, and yet a major studio releases this movie with the very same "unnacceptable" premise without a fuss. Maybe HG isn't quite what I expect in the end, but the reviewers talks of it having the same social satire/condemn violence with violence angle that was behind BR. It sounds a little bizarre/hypocritical.