"May the odds be ever in your favor!"

Rating: 9/10 (1 March 2015)

"May the odds be ever in your favor", that's the sentence along which 24 children, the tributes, are sent into an arena to fight each other. The purpose is to remind the country of a rebellion 74 years ago. Each year, each district has to be represented by one randomly picked boy and girl from their district. That's the pervert concept of the capital of the country: "Panem" which is named "capitol". The whole science-fiction-film "Hunger Games" directed by Garry Ross, is based on the book written by Suzanne Collins. It tells the story about the main character Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) whose sister was elected for the deadly games. Because of that, Katniss volunteers instead of her sister. That's where the tragic story of Katniss having to fight in the arena begins. The two tributes, Katniss and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) are accompanied by their mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) and their contact person in the capitol Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks). The introduction of the characters is well done and also the actors can transfer their fears before and during the games. The peak of the movie is well installed and even though the films' length is about two and a half hour it doesn't get boring and keeps on making you want to know what's next. You can even watch it more than once and it doesn't get boring. It keeps on frightening, surprising you and makes you hope for the tributes and even want to help them. During the film and especially during the games there are a lot of violent scenes, even against children. It is questionable if the FSK 12 rating isn't too low but by reading the book you would have expected a lot more violence shown. All characters are well played, the carreers are as brave and frightening as they need to be, the normal tributes can make you identify with them and are piteous, the mentors are exactly like in the book and during the movie their very special individualities make sense and you'll get to like them; especially President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is like you would imagine him if you read the book. In summary it is a well action packed, moody and exciting movie with a complicated love story, for which the two and a half hours are worth sitting in the cinema (especially in 3d). I wouldn't recommend it to younger people because of the strong violence used, but if you have no problem seeing such things on TV then I can think of no reason why you shouldn't watch it.