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Canberra Today 11°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: “The Hunger Games” (M) ? ? ½

THIS futurist actioner continues a mass-entertainment tradition extending back more than two millennia. Citizens thronged to Rome’s Coliseum to enjoy the violent deaths of lesser people in the arena, behaviour for leading a slaves’ revolt against which Kirk Douglas got crucified in “Spartacus”. More recently, “Logan’s Run” told a story about a society in which everybody on their 30th birthday played a game to the death.

The US in 2076 consists of 12 districts from each of which, to expiate the sins of the populace in past years, a young man and woman are selected to compete in the annual Hunger Games, a TV spectacular in which the last contestant remaining alive receives honours and benefits.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss who volunteers to replace her younger sister selected to compete.

The film is about Katniss’ dour determination to return home as the winner. She has few friends. But coming from a deprived rural region, she has outdoors survival skills.

The film’s profoundly-discomfiting aura raises questions about brutal oligarchic policy in which the populace acquiesces. Sequences resembling Nazi rallies show the panoply and passion of opening ceremony and dedication of the competitors.

I cannot know whether writer/director Gary Ross wants “The Hunger Games” to serve as a polemic against the kind of public policy it depicts. I suspect however that if enough people pay to see it, this filming of the first volume of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy might lead to a sequel.

At all cinemas

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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