(Update: I see I managed to post this review twice in slightly different form. The later version is here. I’ll leave both in place to avoid possible broken links.)

One of my numerous character flaws is a tolerance for cheap laff-a-minute parodies. This take-off on The Hunger Games isn’t good but has its moments and isn’t all that much worse than The Interview. The lead actress, Maiara Walsh, is quite appealing, and I was glad to see on her IMDb page that she’s been in a lot of better movies and television shows. In fact, most of the cast rises above the material.

Writers-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have made a number of movies parodying various film genres (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck) and were also part of the writing team for the original Scary Movie. According to IMDb, this is the first of their films to be a box-office flop, though one IMDb commenter thought it was the least awful thing they’d done.

One segment features a team of lookalikes for major action stars (Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Bruce Willis, et al), and the actors in question reportedly got along so well during the filming that they now hang out together and call themselves The Expandables.

Not exactly recommended, but not horrible.

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