A short review: Lord of the Flies in 1990

Lord of the Flies

Director: Harry Hook
Cast: Balthazar Getty (Ralph), Chris Furrh (Jack), Danuel Pipoly (Piggy), James Badge Dale (Simon), Andrew and Edward Taft (Sam and Eric), Gary Rule (Roger)
Screenplay: Sara Schiff
Length: 1 hr. 30 min
Verdict: SKIP
Rated: R (Obviously not for children either)
Rating Scale: 30%  (Faithfulness is really missing)

This one is the Americanized/ modernized version of the infamous LOF. Now, seriously, what's the point in doing that? Sir William Golding, who wrote the book, had a point when he made these school children British, NOT American millitary school kids. That took out the whole pleasure of watching this trash. Maybe if it was better made I would have given it an OK, but it's not.
One improvement made on the '63 version (which I liked a lot better even though I had given it a mild RENT) was that Jack was so much scary than that other guy was. The Furrh guy knows scary. Mr. Getty, the Taft guys and Dale are "good" as their roles, and Simon actually looks like a 14 or 13 year old, so that's nice.  The only problem with the acting of the character (more of a screenplay choice than anything) WHY DO YOU GUYS CUSS? There is incessant cussing, 20 or more times they say Sh**, and four times they use the F*** word. I mean, even the little guys cuss! That's not really professional to me, I was giggling every time Jack or someone cusses. Not Hook's point, so not a great choice there either.
Since the beginning, you can really tell that this movie is going to be different from the book which is a real no-no. That might not be so much of a big deal: if they hadn't brought up the almost dead captain of the plane out of the water and make the kids go on wild goose-chases to find him or what not, that was just so ridiculous and unnecessary. Speaking of unnsecesary, there were a lot of thing in this book that was unnecesary, and more important plot points from the book that are so important. We don't need endless conversation between boys saying "I wonder what's on TV right now!" Excuse me, what? Why is that so important?
The savages weren't as scary as they were in the '63 version, they just looked like a bunch of brats face painting themselves and killing people. Plus, with all that hillarious cussing, it took a lot of the scary out of savages.
Overall, a trashy remake, which is incredibly long and stupid. It just goes to show you how sometimes, adaptations that take that many liberties from the book don't always work. So, SKIP IT. You're not missing the gold here.

This version is available on DVD

Quotes:
Steve: Sir, are you the leader?
Peter: Jack is the oldest, but Ralph is the colonel.
[group voices votes for Ralph]
Jack Merridew: I guess you just won the election.
Ralph: It doesn't matter who's in charge. We've just got to work together. First, we build a camp.

Tony: What are we gonna do with thieves when we catch them?
Ralph: We can't have kids stealing and just running wild. We're going to have to have stricter rules and hand out demerits... I guess.

Lord of the Flies in 1963

Lord of the Flies  

Director : Peter Brook 

Cast: James Aubrey (Ralph), Tom Chapin (Jack), Hugh Edwards (Piggy), Tom Gaman (Simon), Roger Elwin (Roger), Nicholas Hammond (Robert)

Screenplay: Peter Brook

Distributor: The Criterion Collection

Length: 1 hr. 30 min

Verdict: RENT

Rated: PG-13 (Obviously not advised for children. You know what that means)
Faithful Scale: 95%

I'm giving this one a mild RENT. I'm still a bit conflicted about this version, because there are some pretty bad things, and some pretty good things in there. Problem is I still can't figure out if they over powered each other.  On one hand there are some beautiful moments. On the other, like the book, I still didn't know what was going on at times. One one hand, the savagrey in this adaptation is freaky and scary and well handled. On the other, some kids looked too young to be their characters (especially Ralph and Simon). And the guy who plays Jack, he isn't Jack. Jack is supposed to be scary and freaky and imposing. This Tom Chapin guy looks too... I don't know... soft I guess. I didn't feel scared when he was on screen. The rest did a good job, but what the hell is up with Simon? He looks like he could be eight! Plus I was so confused about who was who, besides Ralph, Piggy (Hugh Edwards is the best thing here) and Samneric of course. 
There were some times when I was watching this and being confused, how the movie jumps from one scene to another is disorganized. The camera work is also messy here, I guess he's trying to make a point or something but it didn't really work for me.The whole time I thought that the guy didn't know how to shoot certain scenes, all that running around with camera going everywhere not focusing on one thing in particular. I understand when somebody gets killed, you don't want to scar the kids for life but there's a point when that's appropriate and other points where it's just plain annoying.
However, it's not totally awful. There are some beautiful and haunting scenes in here and I loved the times where Jack's tribe gets together with the face paint. That's done so beautifully and it shows a definate change within these kids with their chanting and wild faces looking they're ready to kill you, *shudders* Those parts are amazing. The opening montage too is fantastic and brilliant, I don't know why, but it is. I guess this is a take it or leave it type of movie, it IS a classic after all and it's well made. It just dosen't hold up together that well.

Book and Movie reviews coming up

I'm guessing this post is like the In My Mailbox thing, except instead of things arriving by mailbox (Netflix movies excluded of course, those come by mail) I'll keep you updated on what's going on on this blog, and what I'm reading or watching later this week or next or whatever.

Books:

Ok, first, I just checked out Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier from the library:

Movies:

There are two versions of Lord of the Flies. One is the obvious 1966 classic black-and-white movie directed by Peter Brook we all know that one...

And the other is the Americanized and modernized (yes unfortunately, they dared to do so) version that came out in '90, directed by Harry Hook

Has anybody read Girl With a Pearl Earring? I'm on the verge of reading it right now. Also, has anybody seen the new version of LOF? I'd love to hear other people's views on this book and the new (and old) movie version.

Their savage souls, and their dull story

Lord of the Flies
By: William Golding
Setting: An unknown island
Format: 225 pages
Verdict: (Everyone has to read it some day. But for those of you who feel like reading it for fun, you can SKIP IT)
Rated: PG-13 (Violence, killing, savegry...)

The basic premise: A bunch of shipwrecked boys with no adults in sight, start killing each other and turning into savages. Yes, I'm talking about the book that every kid of at least this generation had (or has at least) to read this book for school. I just finished it myself, and not to say it was the worst book I've ever read, but considering there has been many books about the downfall of civilization, this one dosen't reach its potential. Yes, hate me, I dared to not like this book.
Original? Fairly. But notice the PG-13 rating. The book is too kind on this violence, I say if you're going to go with savagrey, flaunt it. Golding takes this too kindly. We are talking about the end of democracy amoung a group of boys who want to kill each other. I admit that too much would ruin it, but there needs to be more to really notice a considerable, awful change. 
Which brings me to another point: Ralph to me wasn't so much as "good guy" than as a "bad." Had Jack not shown up the way he had, I would have been totally convinced that Ralph was going to be the one that's going to create all the mess that happened in this book. At first he acts like a selfish brat. Maybe Golding meant Ralph to be this way so that the reader can sense the destruction ahead I don't know, but the way he treated Piggy, and acted so selfishly, made me lose all the sympathy for him. Well, sometimes I did but I didn't feel a lot, because he continues to brush off Piggy's asthma and continues to not listen to Piggy just because he's not like him or Jack or anybody. 
Simon is the same way, SPOILER HERE!! I felt sad that he died, but only BECAUSE he died. SPOILER OVER. I never connected with him as a character, Golding didn't really develop his personality that well.  So in the end I really didn't care for him that much. Now granted there are some great scenes with him and the Lord of the Flies but there is very little for me to enjoy in his character. Actually, none of them were really enjoyable except for Piggy and Samneric, who had the most complex of personalities, the ones that I actually liked. I told you about Ralph, but Jack seemed a little too unrealistically evil, even for an allegorical novel I found no qualities that I felt, jeez I would really like to know what's going on in this character's head. 
The story itself is intriguing but again, I didn't feel like this was a major break out novel. The writing has no special quality to it, I didn't find myself ENTRANCED by it. The plot never leaps forward because of this non-exciting writing and un-connectable characters. I know some of you will comment on this post and say, "It's an allegory, you're not supposed to take it seriously!" Yes well, in all books, including allegory's, the rules of liking a novel because of character, plot and writing, the rules also apply. 
Now, it's not ALL bad. There are some wonderful scenes that I wouldn't change (The killing of the sow scene, the Lord of the Flies scene...) that were wonderfully gory and creepy. And I did get a chance to compare characters to other people in real life, it is a very original idea, you have to give Golding that. It's not totally unlikely there are no fantastical scenes save a few of course but none of it is really based in the paranormal. But at the same time, the book never really ties together, and those scenes fail to save it. 
Sorry any kids who didn't read this book yet: You are going to have to read it soon. Now, some of my friends absolutely hated this book, that's a bit of an exaggeration. And I can see, going into the Nobel Peace judges (or whatever you call them) why the author won a Nobel for the book. But can I say even CHECK IT OUT even if you want to read it for fun? No. It's not that good enough a classic. This one, I'm afraid, is going to get a SKIP.