A reflection on us?

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2012)

I thought it was a reasonably good movie, compared to most I see. I thought the acting was reasonably good, the casting, direction, costuming/makeup well done. I agree with many here that the camera work was pretty annoying. I thought some of the special effects were pretty good.
But what really hit me was the feeling of sitting there, watching the whole reality TV thing (or ancient Rome thing) taken to its logical conclusion, and that I'm actually part of the voyeuristic problem, because I paid my $10 to watch other people being killed. If you could do it (and I think you could), I think it would be very cool to have a scene where the camera pans around the audience in the film, watching raptly, but the camera continues to pan around the actual theater where we were all sitting and have us see ourselves for what we are - not much better than the people in the capitol feasting on the carnage. (Incidentally it doesn't help that many people here on IMDb have complained that the killing scenes aren't clear enough!) I find the whole thing pretty unsettling. I suppose that's the author's intention - I will now read the book to see if I can discern such a motive...and I will keep looking around the reviews and boards here to see if anyone else has this reaction - so far I don't see it. Maybe we're all too jaded to worry about that?