I've never posted a review before; i hope this is where it goes.
Thinly veiled in dystopic-future science fiction, this is obviously the story of 20th- and early 21st-century Earth,
with a huge percentage of resources owned or controlled by a tiny percentage of humankind, who send
kids out to kill each other, while fools with microphones maunder on about the deeper meaning of it all,
hoping the audience will get misty-eyed and salute the flag. The "Reaping" is MC'd by a drag queen
with a fake British accent, and the running commentary on the combat is supplied by a man who wears
his hair partly painted blue and done up in a bun at the back of his neck; but both of them are blathering
about how wonderful the bloodbath is. In other words, we can catch a few crumbs of "personal freedom,"
but where larger matters are concerned the same old bread-and-circuses slaughter continues. Speaking
of bread, something that pulled me out of the story was the fact that, despite being willing to fight hogs
for a loaf, the lead character--as well as other major characters in the same economic situation--was
very well fleshed. If the producers of Monster could require Charlize Theron to gain 40 pounds, it seems
to me the producers of The Hunger Games could have asked Jennifer Lawrence to drop 10 pounds.