Review of Lord of the Flies

A stilted, bare-bones adaptation of William Golding's terrific novel. It bypasses the book's religious and psychological allegories and ignores characterisation of key characters (most notably Ralph, Simon and Roger) in favour of presenting 'highlights' and set-pieces from the book in an effort to make the film come across as powerful when the power of Golding’s story wasn’t primarily in actions but in words, behaviour and metaphors – the “Lord Of The Flies” is barely featured and the killer quote, “I’m part of you”, is nowhere to be heard! Visually, the film is great, full marks there, but that emphasises the fact that the film is very much style over substance. Of course, a film that has its entire cast made up from child actors is always going to struggle (although the kid who plays Simon is pretty damn good), but that doesn’t excuse the complete emptiness of the film. A shame. [/bad grammar]

2/5