REVIEW: The Hunger Games (dir. Ross)

Jennifer Lawrence may have extremely limited range as an actress — her round,  sphinx-like features lend her a sullen impassivity — but she has something that may be even more precious than acting ability: a complete absence of fear. Bogart would have loved her: she's a smoky-voiced odalisque just like Bacall, unfazed by anything going on in the scene around her — swords, arrows, her fellow actors, the camera, which she stares down with such insolence you wonder if the absence of fear doesn't indicate a corresponding lack of imagination. Better actresses than her have looked into that unblinking lens and seen the abyss staring back at them. Lawrence doesn't bat an eye-lid; she just takes aim and fires. This is great news for her archery skills and bad news for her co-star in The Hunger Games — the boy from The Kids Are Alright, who spends much of this movie whining about how he's not going to make it and  looking too short than her. Their love scenes together are the worst since Sandra Bullock's and Chris O Donnell's in In Love and War, and for much the same reason: Lawrence looks like she'd rather be sewing up wounds with a length of her own gut than tending to this snuffling pup. The film is an unbelievable piece of crap — the futuristic fashions hurt my eyes, the action scenes are too shakicam-confusing and the name "Katniss Everdene", even after the 40th iteration, never ceased to sound completely made-up. (And somebody please stop casting Lenny Kravitz as a designer-stubbled Pygmalion tending to the inner beauty of teenage girls. It's creeping me out). But Lawrence holds steady at the centre — oblivious, steadfast, quiver at the ready, her newly dark hair curtaining alabaster skin, like Cleopatra minus the mercuriality: just barges, burnished thrones and a smudge of eyeliner. D+