Critics' Obseravtions of Where the Hunger Games Holds Back

Although the film is getting good review, these two critics make interesting points about the film's choices on how violence and oppression are represented (or not) in order to market it.

Roger Ebert's Review (click) "Director Gary Ross and his writers (including the series' author, Suzanne Collins) obviously think their audience wants to see lots of hunting-and-survival scenes, and has no interest in people talking about how a cruel class system is using them."

The New Yorker Review (click) "The camera rushes through the wilderness, but, in the end, the movie looks less like a fight to the death than like a scavenger hunt [...] 'The Hunger Games' is a prime example of commercial hypocrisy. The filmmakers bait kids with a cruel idea, but they can’t risk being too intense or too graphic (the books are more explicit). After a while, we get the point: because children are the principal audience, the picture needs a PG-13 rating. The result is an evasive, baffling, unexciting production"