Holes (2003)

Welcome to another review.

Today I will be giving a review of the movie adaptation of one of my favorite books from when I was a kid, Holes. Holes by Louis Sachar is a wonderful story about an unlucky boy named Stanley Yelnats. Stanley is wrongly convicted of theft and sent to Camp Green Lake. The Camp is a place in the deserted area of the country and all the 'bad boys' are sent there for correction. Everyday, each boy has to dig a 5 feet deep and 5 feet wide hole in the desert. The living conditions are also terrible. Stanley has a great deal of trouble in the beginning, adjusting to the harsh conditions and mean boys there. Stanley befriends an unusual kid Zero, not knowing that there is a deep connection between him and Zero regarding the past. Holes is a great mix of the present and past of Stanley's life, his ancestor's lives and the story behind the terrible Camp Green Lake.

The movie stars Shia LaBeouf as Stanley. Though he has acted well, there is some distance between the Stanley we expected from the book and the Stanley shown on reel screen. I guess it is very hard to adjust movie characters exactly as they were described in the book version. Anyways, the shooting location of the movie is on par with what we had visualized from the book. Though, the size of the holes does not look as intimidating as we had pictured in our minds there, the look of the Yellow Spotted Lizards sure covers for that there. The rest of the cast had been chosen adequately according to the characters. Almost all of the dialogues of the movie have been synchronized according to the book. I watched the movie even though I had read the book thrice, so the movie was repetitive and highly predictable to me.

Though the movie is a good watch, the Holes book by Louis Sachar is a better read and anyone not familiar to the story of Holes should read the book first, as watching the movie first will obviously spoil the reading experience of the award winning book.