Good Action Movie

Rating: 8/10 (3 May 2012)

This was a very good action movie with an idiotic story premise. Most of the movie takes place in a forest-like arena where enemies and allies get knocked out one by one in a guerrilla warfare scenario like those classic Scwartzenagger and Stalone Extravaganzas from the 80s. It has a similar vein to the classic movies Predator and Rambo.
The story is rather ridiculous and hard to swallow only to be digested with the understanding that this is a total fantasy and despite the characters being humanoid we must understand this to be another world in some way.
Its about a futuristic society that pulls children's names out of hats essentially to be sacrificed. One out of 24 is supposed to survive the competition where the combatants fight with each other to the death with primitive weapons. And the oddest thing and purposefully hard to stomach is that that a small 11 year old girl must compete against a strong fully grown 18 year old male. It is a hard to swallow story. The world is so barbaric that our mind had to sense it in the middle earth realm and not this world. It is somewhat interesting to understand the reasoning behind this all powerful insecure government that runs such an event to keep the subjects in subjugation by fear yet teasing them with the smallest iota of hope. The expansive evil society and government will clearly play a larger part in the sequels but the movie wisely focused on the thrilling action packed training, build up to the competition and the game itself. Making a dumb, very entertaining and engaging action movie was beneficial over dwelling on another evil government movie. The charismatic actors gave the movie its edge and appeal.
There are some parallels to the world of reality TV. The competitors go on stage and are made up in their best outfits to try to win appeal and gain favor from the audience. The competition is shown to the public on screen. It was very reminiscent and hauntingly satirical of the reality shows in our world.