FILM
The Hunger Games
(12A) 142mins
★★★✩✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Dystopian death games tell us everything we need to know about our modern obsession with dazzle - only without much sparkle.
REVIEW
Little wonder that this film of the cult novel has quickly been tagged the essential film of our times.
It is fairly dripping with the zeitgeist, plucking at every 21st century theme and nightmare to make a dark satire.
Essentially, The Hunger Games are The X-Factor - only with death and glory instead of a raspberry and an "X" for the losers.
It touches on the fatal attraction of celebrity, the Faustian pacts with the masses and the commercial necessity of an emotional back story to land the lucrative sponsorship.
The film itself though is a little more irksome than the trend-spotters would have you believe.
At a hefty 142 minutes there is a lot of agitated set dressing and not enough conflict and connection.
None of this is to fault Jennifer Lawrence as our tomboy heroine Katniss Everdeen who has to fight to death 23 other teenagers for the pride of her district in a future world that resembles North Korea with a touch of Nazi chic.
Lawrence is earnest and solid and wholly convincing in this colourful world of camp and campfires.
If this harmless if muted twaddle had been allowed to run its course it could have been a worthy successor to Lord Of The Flies - but director Gary Ross has other ideas.
The cruel manipulation essential for a ratings-winning death hunt is fair enough but Ross has introduced such cack-handed and convenient get-outs and contrivances that nothing, ultimately, is very threatening or credible.
