Stop Shaking the Damn Camera

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2012)

Who'd have ever thought that the USA would have to import its violence. But its true. In the quest to ever lower the bar for how far Hollywood will go to grab a buck, they finally made a movie about children slaughtering each other with a PG-13 rating.
How did they accomplish this? By shaking the camera mercilessly and never showing any actual penetration. In effect, its about as violent as any three stooges movie without the zany sound effects. Dogs mauling kids; either off-screen or in the shadows. Killer wasps; more shaky camera work and muddied CGI. If it wasn't for the cannon blasts signifying the deaths of the contestants, there would be no way to know what happened to most of the characters in the arena.
I'm not saying this movie is stupid, its actually pretty good. Its just not a good action film and its almost too juvenile for what should be a more dramatic piece. The violence is all done off-screen or through the use of shaky cameras so there's no sense of imminent danger. The other sacrifices are ignored so entirely that there's no feeling that the main character wouldn't make it to the end. There is a scene where a friend of the main character is impaled with a spear and there is no weight to the scene or the memorial scene that follows, its just another minor character dying off screen.
This movie is more of a satire on reality TV game shows, but they don't do enough viewer reaction to important scenes (as they did in The Truman Show) to really monopolize on that satire. Only one scene attempts to capture that moment, but the gestures expressed between the character in the game and the audience are lost to those that haven't read the book. If you wish to find a better satire of reality TV game shows and socially acceptable violence, I recommend the movie Death Race 2000 with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone.
The best reason to see this movie is Woody Harrelson's character of a psychologically damaged and alcoholic winner from a previous tournament. He steals the show in every scene he's in.
Its good, but it could have been better.