and women from the outlying regions are forced to fight to the death in front of TV cameras on an annual basis. This time around, representing the remote District 12, where the inhabitants eke out an existence of bucolic deprivation, are Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) – sorry folks, everyone has names like that. After being presented to the public and the preening judges and officials in the Capitol, the contestants are transported to the remote arena where the bloodletting will take place, and the stage is set for a battle roy – oops, hush my mouth...

Pointing out things that The Hunger Games is a rip-off of has become a bit of a blood sport in its own right recently: in addition to a certain Japanese movie, people are going on about Rollerball , original episodes of Star Trek , and so on, and so on. Well, you know, just because something isn't original doesn't necessarily mean it's actually bad, and it seems to me that the main donor of most of the narrative DNA here is Nigel Kneale's 1968 play The Year of the Sex Olympics , in