There's a lot more to this than people fighting to the death

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2015)

"The Hunger Games" is much more than another "people fight to the death for the audience's entertainment" film. It's well acted with solid characters and good art direction and I'm certain that it's just the beginning of a larger saga with an epic story.
Jennifer Lawrence continues to deliver solid performances and Is by far the stand-out player in this, but all of the other players do a convincing job. Even the child actors, which I'm always wary of seeing are good. The performances mean that you will actually care about the characters and want to see them again (the ones that are left anyway). Even the "villains" have their moments of character development to show that they're not just mustache-twirling bad buys.
One element that I really enjoyed and thought was pretty impressive was the costume and art direction. To really show a clash of civilizations and how different this world Is from ours the people of Capitol City (where the titular Hunger Games take place) have all of these outlandish costumes and manners of dressing. These costumes sometimes have futuristic elements (explaining that this takes place far into the future) but mostly serve to show the difference between the 12 Districts from which each of the "game players" come from and the rich Capitol. It also gave me a rough Idea of how far into the future this story takes place without falling on typical science fiction elements like flying cars, or daily trips to the moon or other extravagances that have questionable plausibility. The costumes really feel like they could be worn by rich models and the cream of the crop of the 21st century, except for those futuristic elements and they're fun to look at. I don't even care about fashion and I was impressed by the costumes on display here.
When it comes to the action and violence the film does a good job, showing just enough to demonstrate how brutal a fight to the death can be without going too far and feeling like an exploitation film. The violence is well integrated into the story and it never feels like the movie was built around it. Even if you're not a fan of this type of film, with an audience watching as gladiators fight each other to try and win a prize, this is a smart entry in the genre with good acting and tasteful violence that's sure to get even more interesting with the future entries in the series. (Theatrical version on the big screen, April 2012)