Film & TV

DVD Review: The Starving Games

The Starving Games

The Starving Games attempts to copy the Flying High and Naked Gun style of scatter-shot parody, not realising The Hunger Games is already a parody unto itself.

 

The Starving GamesKantmiss Evershot (Maiara Walsh) is a resident of District 12. An enclave of people fighting for food, it is ruled over by the wicked President Snowballs (Diedrich Bader). Creating a televised game in which participants to fight for their district, Kantmiss determines to take part. After her boyfriend Dale (Brant Daugherty) misses out on a spot, she is teamed with Peter (Cody Christian). Surviving a jungle full of mishaps and outrageous calamity, both have to survive a test of very strange wills.

A rule for any comedy is that it has to be funny. To completely fail at this is something The Starving Games does well. Its attempts to copy the Flying High and Naked Gun style of scatter-shot parody feels forced and cheap. Its biggest problem is the subject it has chosen. The Hunger Games is already a parody unto itself, with its comments on reality TV satirically biting. The Starving Games fails to realise this as it descends into a pit of predictable crudity.

No effort has been made to inject any semblance of clever wit. Instead directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer aim at obvious targets such as celebrities and current fads. This automatically dates the humour with the actors desperately attempting to maintain their dignity. The fact that the bloopers sequence towards the end provides more laughs than the preceding 70 minutes speaks volumes.

The Starving Games is the type of movie best left watched when nothing else is available. A poorly constructed, dreadfully made and unfunny morass of low-brow humour, it brings shame to the parody genre perfected so well by better talents.

Reviewed by Patrick Moore

Rating out of 10:  0

The Starving Games is now available on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital download.

 

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