Lord of the Flies (1990) review

Plot Summary




The Lord of the flies is about a group of young Military Cadets that plane crash in the sea just off an uninhabited tropical island. They find fruit and fresh water. Piggy, a fat boy that wears glasses finds a conch shell in the water. Ralph, the main character uses this to round up the boys so they can have a meeting. They all first decide to build a fire on top of the mountain so ships may see them. Then they build shelters. Jack goes off hunting and soon things break up. Jack creates a tribe of hunters. They forget about the fire and go off hunting all the time.





Ralph's and Piggy's group consists of mostly little ones and they try to keep the fire going.



In the night Jacks tribe sneak to Ralph's groups shelter and break it up so they can steal their survival knife. Sadly Piggy's glasses are broken in the process.



While hunting one of Jack's little hunters finds a cave where the captain they brought along is mad. The boy is so scared he takes his spear and stabs the captain.

Everyone thinks it was a monster so they kill a pig, cut it's head off and place it on a stick in front of the cave. Jack says "This is a present for the monster."


Jack's tribe make a big fire so the can roast a pig they find. Ralph and Piggy's group visits them and the Little ones join Jack. The tribe performs a strange and insane tribal dance around the fire.


Meanwhile Simon finds the pig's head and then enters the cave. He finds that the captain was in there dead and runs off to tell the others.

In the night Jack's tribe sneak up on Ralph and Piggy and steal his glasses.

Near the end of the film the tribe burn up the wood and chase Ralph through the forest.




To see the film Trailer click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvmi3oZ_vH8



The film is really different to the book, here are some of the differences.


Difference between the film and the book

• The children are American's, but in the book they are British.




• In the film they are military cadets but in the book they are school children.




• In the film Ralph is always nice to Piggy, but in the book he isn't so kind to him at first.




• In the film the children don't use phrases like 'Biguns' or 'littluns'.




• In the film the boys are brought ashore by a liferaft, when in the book Ralph and Piggy emerge from the crashed aircraft on land.




• In the book most of the boys don't know eachother because there are two different schools. In the film there is one school and everyone knows eachother.




• In the films there is a lot of strong language. In the book there is hardly any.




• In the fire that accidentally spreads out of control, a littllun supposedly dies in the fire.



• In the book the boys are between 8 years old to 12 years old. In this film they look like 11 to 13 years old.

FACTS ABOUT THE FILM

• The leading actor Balthazar Getty who plays Ralph, fell from a tree in Tarzana, California and broke his arm just before the filming of Lord of the Flies. The producers wanted him as the lead roll so much that they wrote the broken arm into the script. You can see his broken arm in bits of the film.
• Danuel Pipoly who plays Piggy recieved two award nominations one including best young supporting actor.

I really like this film. The acting is superb, especially Danuel Pipoly's acting who playes Piggy. If the filmakers had kept to the book it would have been even better and if they used less bad language. I think they captured the death scenes well, they were really gripping and realistic. The film had me shocked at first with the scenes when Piggy cries after the other boys break and then steal his glasses.
So, Lord of the Flies is another of my favourate films. Hopefully one day, someone will make an even better remake that is truer to the book and is British.