In a decadent future, The Hunger Games' child-on-child deathmatches entertain the mindless and cow the oppressed. Today, they're as dangerous as a PG-13 movie dares be. Though the sharp edges present in Suzanne Collins' novel are dulled in Gary Ross's film, star Jennifer Lawrence shows a convincing paradox of youthful stoicism and vulnerability, and she pulls it through.

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The Hunger Games is a young adult novel about a grim future, in which teens are picked each year to fight to the death on TV. The subject matter, however, has earned the eagerly-awaited movie adaptation some ratings troubles. In the U.S., the MPAA issued it a PG-13 rating, for movies with material "inappropriate" for pre-teens. In the UK, the distributor cut 7 seconds of blood splatter to earn a "12" rating instead of the "15" first offered by censors there -- children under the rated age may not enter theaters unless accompanied by an adult.