The Hunger Games manages to be good entertainment and a faithful adaptation, but has little time for social commentary.

The Hunger Games appears to be an allegory about modern society. It takes place in the future dystopian nation of Panem, with an all-powerful Capitol that subjugates its 12 districts to slave labor and an annual event named the Hunger Games, where 24 district children are tossed into a death pit in order to maim and kill each other. The citizens of Panem watch the games unfold each year as entertainment, waiting for one victor to emerge from the carnage and be championed a hero. There are obvious, inherent parallels one could draw between such a setting and the present day – the glorification of violence, the wholesale auctioning of human despair for TV ratings, the exploitation of the disenfranchised by a privileged few – and yet, what is this film really trying to say? Continue reading →