There’s a great movie to be made out of William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, but the one released in 1990 isn’t it. I watched it last night. The actors are decent and some of the casting is quite good–the boy who plays Piggy looks like a 10-year-old Drew Carey, which is perfect–but the script leaves out important elements from the story and adds a few scenes and details that aren’t necessary. One example: Simon’s dialogue with the sow’s head (which isn’t obviously a sow in the movie) is completely missing, even though it is the moral center of the novel. The film is only 90 minutes long, but it drags and drags. I recently finished reading the book for the first time in many years and wanted to see how someone would interpret it on screen. What a big disappointment. Maybe I’ll try the 1963 version sometime, but my video-rental store doesn’t carry it.