The Starving Games

This movie is bad. It's unfunny and cringeworthy jokes and lack of wit make it a disaster

If you get all the references you're sure to get a chuckle or two. The lead actress looks startlingly like Jennifer Lawrence at times. There's a few good one liners.

I'm a sucker for spoof movies. And although I am of the opinion that Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are a pair of talentless hacks, I keep buying their movies on DVD, in the faint hope that one of these days they will produce something half-decent. I decided to give them a fair shot this time around and actually sought out the real thing - "The Hunger Games" before I stuck Friedberg & Seltzer's offering into my DVD player, so at least I would have some idea of what they are trying to spoof.

The result is fairly typical Friedberg & Seltzer fare - grab a bunch of unknown actors who bare a passing similarity to the more talented originals, throw in a bunch of gratuitous pop culture references that are way too late ('Harry Potter', 'Gangnam Style', 'The Expendables', 'Avatar' etc.) and try to tell your story in under 80 minutes, including 20 minutes of bloopers and credits. In that respect, "The Starving Games" doesn't disappoint and nothing in this movie will come as a surprise to those of you who have seen other works by Friedberg & Seltzer.

This is their sixth collaboration as directors (sadly, there are more in the pipeline - next up is a spoof of Fast & Furious) but alas, they are not really getting much better at this sort of thing. The only decent movie they were ever involved with was back in 2000 as two of the six writers on 'Scary Movie'. Based on their career track since then, it is clear that it was the other four writers who actually had the talent.

That this film hasn't been picked up by a proper distributor and has basically gone straight-to-video says it all. I'd love to know where Friedberg & Seltzer get the money to keep financing this stuff. It's probably all my fault, as I keep buying all their DVD's! If we all stopped watching, maybe they'd go away and get a real job. The thing is though, I can't help myself. I *knew* this film would be pants. I just had to see it for myself just to see how bad it really was. I'm desperately trying to think of something positive to say about this movie. How about - "It's not the worst of the six films they've made?" A final word to Maiara Walsh - you're better than this.

I have absolutely NO IDEA why my parents let me watch this as a kid.

Review: This movie was totally not funny. For a spoof movie, I was expecting at least a couple of laughs, but the director must have been about 2 years old because the whole thing just seemed immature and silly. The only thing that a found a little amusing was the Pink bearded Mr. T lookalike, but that was about it. Some parts go really over the top, and make you wonder if they actually watched the movie before they brought it out, which was why it went straight to DVD. You won't be seeing most of the actors again, so there isn't much to comment about there performances. At the end of the day, it's just another spoof movie. Disappointing!

Round-Up: As there dint that much out on DVD, I thought that I would give this movie a go, but I knew what to expect. I didn't really pay that much attention to the film after a whole because I just couldn't find anything funny. There are a few references to some other movies like The Avengers and The Expendables, but the director didn't do that much with the material. If you want loads of laughs then this is definitely not the movie for you, but if you want to play "Name That Film" then you should give it a go. A total waste of time and budget.

Budget: $4.5million Worldwide Gross: N/A

I recommend this movie to people who are into there spoof movies, but don't expect much from this a Hunger Games make over. 2/10