State versus the people

The themes of oppression and rebellion give this excellent film its power

The Hunger Games ....

Series such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter took a fresh view of a classic story and went on to become blockbusters.

The Hunger Games now joins that fantasy élite, sporting a startling visual look, a set of tightly focused performances and a simple but powerful theme - revolution.

The story plays out in a despotic nation called Panem. The seat of power is the Capitol, a vast, glittering city peopled by the rich and powerful. Surrounding the Capitol are 12 districts, ruined settlements in which the people live in poverty as the slaves of the Capitol. They must raise the crops and provide food and every necessity that the aristocracy requires.

In response, the Capitol's President Snow (Donald Sutherland), stages a reality-TV spectacle known as "the Hunger Games". Each district must provide two "Tributes", ranging in age from 10 to 20, who are given cursory training with weapons and let loose in rough terrain, where they must kill each other. The last one standing is the winner.

For the population of the Capitol, it is a grand spectacle. For the people of the regions it is a desperate tragedy - the sight of their children killing each other. In this year, however, a young woman, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is one of the "Tributes", and her courage and passion change the game.

Quite apart from the originality of the story, with its themes of repression and revolution, the film is astonishingly beautiful. The broad classical cityscapes, done in the Palladian style, show the Capitol as a place of dignity and grace.

It's when you meet the inhabitants that you see the truth. Costume designer Judianna Makovsky does extraordinary things with wigs, clothing and make-up. It's Marie Antoinette meets Mary Quant, with help from Christian Lacroix.

Elizabeth Banks (pictured) makes a meal of her role as the calculating Effie Trinket, but she's matched by Stanley Tucci as the TV host of the Games, sporting a purple pompadour. Wes Bentley plays Seneca Crane, with the most ornate beard ever seen on screen.

All that decadent splendour in the Capitol throws the brutality of the games into stark contrast, and fine performances emerge. Lawrence, who won an Oscar nomination for Winter's Bone (2011), delivers a complex performance of great power. Woody Harrelson also gives a great performance as a dissolute man who, belatedly, finds his conscience, and Sutherland shines as the affable president who is as lethal as a snake.

The film raises questions of state domination, and the "dumbing down" of citizens who are trained to care only for themselves and not the society in which they live. When you look closely , the step from the fictional Capitol in Panem to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, or the White House in the US, or the Houses of Parliament in the UK, is not as big as you may think, and that's what gives this excellent film its power.

Close Up: The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Aimed at the kids, this zesty, animated comedy will give families something smart and entertaining to see at the movie malls. It will also appeal to the animation buffs, because it was produced by one of the most unusual animation studios - Aardman Animations - which uses the process called "claymation". The studio created the Wallace and Gromit series, the wonderful Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas. They are quirky and in this film there's a great deal of wit that will amuse the adult audience, leaving the kids to savour the nonsensical bits. An eccentric pirate captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) is determined to plunder more ships than all the other pirates, so that he can win the coveted the "Pirate of the Year" competition. He has to defeat Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek).

It is set in the Victorian era, and a bunch of famous people slip in and out of the film. There's Charles Darwin, who discovers a supposed parrot (called Polly) that could be the last living dodo. Queen Victoria appears, and wants to eat Polly. It's lively romp for kids and adults alike.