Review of Battle Royale (2000) by Paul B — 03 Feb 2014

To state that this film actually is everything modern tween audiences believe The Hunger Games to be doesn't quite do it justice. Battle Royale is a genuinely twisted adventure that doesn't attempt to batter down its blatantly melodramatic themes in shame so as to sell itself off as dark and edgy in the same way that its inferior bastard child The Hunger Games does, but instead embraces its own melodrama and marries it together with life-or-death stakes so as to add more depth and a clever sense of cruel irony, while also remarking on the current state of modern youth and the and disgusting ends of human violence under extreme circumstances.

But perhaps the most astounding feat of Battle Royale, marking its superiority over its already mentioned unwanted offspring, is that no matter how over-the-top it may become, it still remains believable.