Product Details

• Actors: Balthazar Getty, Chris Furrh, Danuel Pipoly, James Badge Dale, Andrew Taft
• Directors: Harry Hook
• Writers: Jay Presson Allen, William Golding
• Producers: David V. Lester, Jeffrey Bydalek, Lewis M. Allen, Lewis Newman, Peter Allen
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: November 20, 2001
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (183 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005O06X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,012 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Lord of the Flies" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Harry Hook's adaptation is not as faithful to the William Golding novel as you'd wish (they excised the Lord of the Flies dialogue with Simon!) and because of it, the movie is less allegorical and less resonant. A group of young men from a military academy are stranded on an island. The group quickly becomes fractious with a passive section led by Ralph, trying to get rescued, and a hunter faction, led by Jack, trying to procure meat and "have fun." Peter Brook's 1963 filming seemed to get closer to the Darwinist sense of this cultural disintegration. Here, the hunter faction seems more like Peter Pan's Lost Boys than the bloodthirsty murderers they are. The performances, particularly young Getty, don't quite carry the weight of the situation. It's still, however, sobering to slowly watch the school uniforms traded for war paint, and the little boys turn into little savages. --Keith Simanton

Product Description

With 'sharply expressive performances (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) by its young cast, this stunning adventure explores the deep dark corners of the human soul, as a group of adolescent castaways are thrust into an intense world where law and accountability are governed by the rules of survival. After a harrowing plane crash into the sea, a group of American military cadets finds itselfmarooned on a deserted island. Realizing the minimal chances of being rescued, the boys band together out of fear and desperation. But as the island paradise becomes their own, competition and power struggles split them into two packs. Ralph (Bathazar Getty) leads one group and preaches civilized ingenuity and togetherness, but Jack (Chris Furrh) wants nothing of it and builds a faction of barbaric hunters who ultimately go to war with Ralph. This powerful shift in conscience transforms ordinary kids into primal killers, setting off a devastating battle of good versus evil and presenting a haunting metaphor for the savage in us all.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 80 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Lord of the What-the-heck-was-the-director-thinking? December 6, 2000

By Sean E. Mcgrath

Format:VHS Tape

One cannot criticize the cinematography of this move. It is, at times, lush, humid and tropically, oppressively beautiful. All of which are good things...

...but that's all I can say good about the film.

Golding originally conceived "Lord of the Flies" as an xploration of Human nature, and how people are inheirently evil. To drive this point home, he took English school boys (some of whom were members of a church choir) crash landed them on an island during a wartime evacuation and said, "Have at it!" (metaphorically speaking). The book and indeed the 1963 movie version asks how if even children can become cruel and violent and evil with very little prompting, are humans as advanced as we like to think? Are we really all that different from animals? Readers/viewers are shocked to see how far such a small child can fall.

Weeeeeeeeellllllll...

This, the 1990 version of Lord of the Flies, puts American military students on an island during a conflict of some sort, so when the first blow is struck it's not all that surprising. This removes the impact of Golding's ideas, and this becomes another adventure story (of sorts. Like "The Hun Family Robinson"). Further, the "updated" material doesn't really work: the glo-sticks, kids talking about watching "ALF" on TV (which seriously dates this movie. I guess the screenwrighter thought ALF would be around forever. Another example of the narrowness of this version. It is already obsolete, while the book perseveres.), Simon having a vision of a stealth bomber, etc.. It's all a bit too uneven, too naive almost, but totally lacking in charm (if such a word can be used here). In essence, this is a visceral film that lacks guts.

Nothing upsets me more than movies that violate the basic premise of a book ("The Handmaid's Tale" also comes screaming to mind), and this movie goes out of its way to be "different" but identifibe by its title. Really, this should have been called something else for as much as the story is like the book; perhaps "Ishtar" would be more appropriate.

One weird editing glitch I noticed was an image of a sunrise - the viewer sees it from a cliff with a tree interveing the space. Well, that night at sunset we see the same tree, the same cliff, but reversed!! Like the sun rose and set in the same place in the sky and the tree had turned to meet it. It's very disconcerting.

So, unless you're taking a class in comparative cinema, don't bother with this one. An, whatever happened to Balthazar Getty? I thought his name guaranteed his career longevity. Weird...

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Relax, it's a good movie! January 25, 2006

By Liam McDevitt

Format:DVD

So many of these reviews have really piled on the sludge. Relax, this is a good movie! All right, so it's a rather loose cinematic interpretation of Golding's novel. That's what the film medium allows for. The cinematography is sumptuous, the pace of the movie quick, the story absorbing, the message of malicious cruelty's natural advantage easy to read. The young actors give very fine performances--the villain Jack is superb--and they should all get extra credit for having to do so much of this movie in their underwear. As their uniforms and their old sense of selves deteriorate, the boy-cadets are reduced to their jockeys: and then in turn their jockeys are reduced to filthy scraps of cloth once they run off to join Jack's camp in the wild. With their painted faces and matted hair this virtual nakedness makes the transformation to the savage state disturbingly complete. If you like movies with a strong story-line and good cinematography, I recommend this (with reservations for children under 12).

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars This Film is absaloute Nonsense!!!!! May 20, 2002

By A Customer

Format:VHS Tape

The 1960s film version of this great book almost looks good when compared to this practical joke. This film is truly dreadful in every aspect. Any sort of statement that Golding made in the novel is way over the heads of everyone involved with this film. If they understood it, then it would not have been butchered in the way that it has been with this piece of dirt. First off, the whole military academy thing, the book is about the loss of innocence and the tragedy of man's heart. If the boys are already involved in conflict situations why put them on an island to see how they react to it? Simon was appaulingly portraid, by an ugly child. Given that he was supposed to be a christ like redeemer, this film has obviously missed the point that Simon made in the book. He is an insight into man's real self, but in this says nothing and does nothing. His death is not significant because the feeling was not built up that he was the saviour, and his death is supposed to convey a feeling of despiration. Don't watch this film, it's rubbish, if you want to see a film version of this chilling and tragic book, them watch the 60s version, but never ever ever watch this bucket of sick. Read the book, and be enlightened. They should have made a film about another book, instead of trivializing the most important novel of the twentieth century in this shallow adaptation. William golding must be revolving in his grave very fast indeed at this stain on the name of "Lord of the Flies"