You’ve heard the joke, right? What do they call The Hunger Games in France? Battle Royale with Cheese.

That’s about right. Think Battle Royale without much battle and what battle there is over very quickly and in a flurry of muddled camerawork and editing for an age certificate. Think Truman Show. Think Lord of the Flies. Or should that be Lord of the Aphids? Think that garish film with Bruce Willis in the future with all those OTT future fashions. Think of a lot of missed opportunity for either a good adventure movie, or a good satire, or a dystopian nightmare. Think of forests and flashy computers, day-glow and streams. Think of characters you never get to know, allegiances never explained, and not knowing how many are left alive. Think of healing potions and special cammo cream. Think of very shaky cameras and disorientating editing. The girl was very watchable, and did the right thing most of the time. There’s a really quite touching funeral arrangement with flowers. I wanted to enjoy the film, but couldn’t due to how poorly, um, executed it was. There could have been some really cool action, hunting, chasing, hiding, etc. but the opportunities were for the most part lost. Whoops we went to see a teen movie, I thought half way through. Poor teens. I hope for their sakes the books are better.