The Darkest Minds Review
PG-13: For violence including disturbing images, and thematic elements20th Century Fox, 21 Laps Entertainment1 Hr and 45 MinutesDir: Jennifer Yuh Nelson | Writer: Chad HodgeCast: Amandla Stenberg, Harris Dickinson, Skylan Brooks, Miya Cech, Mandy Moore, Gwendoline Christie, Patrick Gibson, Bradley Whitford, Golden Brooks, Mark O’Brien, Wallace LanghamNowadays it feels like you MUST star in a Y/A sci-fi film adaptation in order to join the ranks in Hollywood as a promising actress. It's apparently the standard for young actresses before they’re given the mature adult roles that get them Oscar nominations. Now it’s Amandla Stenberg’s turn to bat, and by God she tries.
After a disease killed 98% of children and young people in the United States, the 2% who managed to survive have developed superpowers, but have been locked in internment camps after being declared a threat. One of those 16-year-old girls, Ruby, manages to escape from her camp and joins a group of teenagers fleeing government forces.THE GOODYou know the term “black girl magic”? Well, get ready for our newest installation: “black girl psychic”. While this is practically a world of mutants, our lead Ruby is the Professor X of them all for she has telekinetic abilities. She can read your mind, make you do stuff, and erase herself from your mind like that friend you drop from your contact list.It’s great to see how, throughout the years, Amandla Stenberg went from having a small role as Rue from “The Hunger Games” (a Y/A sci-fi film adaptation turned into a multimillion dollar franchise) to being the lead in her very own Y/A sci-fi film adaptation that is desperately trying to kick off a franchise. She holds her own quite well as the main lead in this movie. She does a better job than, say, Chloë Grace Moretz in “The Fifth Wave” and Saoirse Ronan in “The Host”.Is that it? Did I feel my quota for the positives of this movie? Okay!
THE BADI spent a lot of time wondering why Fox has done absolutely no marketing for this movie as it got closer to release, but now I get it. They know that, not only is this bad, but it’s also something they regrettably wanted to pull a franchise out of.To quote (and also twist) the words of the great Korey Coleman, “If you haven’t seen ‘Twilight’, ‘Percy Jackson’, ‘Beautiful Creatures’, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, ‘The Giver’, ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘The Fifth Wave’, ‘Divergent’, ‘I Am Number Four’, and ‘Harry Potter’, then boy have we got a movie for you because it's all right here.”
Jesus, Fox didn’t you just finish “The Maze Runner” trilogy in January? There is no need for you to start another franchise, especially something as generic as this. This movie gives you 10 minutes to get invested in this world and then it throws you right into the cesspool of Y/A sci-fi tropes and cliches mixed with all the other things you would expect.You have these kids segregated by districts... I mean factions... I mean houses... I mean colors. Wait, is that what we’re going with? Colors? And not black or white. We’re talking green, red, blue, orange. Each color specifies their special ability. So, orange means you’re telekinetic. Red means you can create fires... You can figure the rest out from there.The more exposition characters explain about this post apocalyptic world and it’s society, the more generic the movie becomes. The more details I get about this world, the more I compare it to other worlds that are better structured and more developed. I’m not a fan of “Divergent” but I understood how their world worked. Here, I’m just confused and it makes me raise more questions as the film progresses. But, HEY LET’S HAVE THIS GIRL (who is destined to be this special badass hero to start a revolution in her society) BE ON THE RUN FROM AN EVIL GOVERNMENT CAMP IN SEARCH FOR… SOMETHING?! From there you get all these one-dimensional disposable characters that you’ll grow to forget by the end of the movie.These include (but are not limited to):Nerdy black guy who serves as the comic reliefThe silent AsianAnd of course the good looking white guy who is too cool for the system and is also the love interest and of course the chemistry he shares with Ruby is never romantic but mostly awkward.One of the first scenes that is supposed to be the beginning of their romantic tension is Liam handing Ruby a pair of socks. Liam is awkward with Ruby as he tries to give her a pair of socks while she’s in a towel. HE’S MUMBLING HIS WORDS OVER GIVING HER A PAIR OF SOCKS !
As if that isn’t bad enough, it actually gets worse. Harry Potter is referenced as a means to make Ruby and Liam bond in a later scene where they make it to a camp to reside for a bit and a party commences because of it. Believe me, this is an actual exchange between Liam and Ruby:Ruby: “Oh wow this place is like Hogwarts.”Liam: “I guess that makes you Harry. Or Hermione. But Harry and Hermione never got together. So, I guess it makes you Ginny? Or me Ginny? I don’t know. Do you like Harry and Ginny together?”*awkward chucking”Liam: “I think I’m going to dance now.”
I’m telling you that the dialogue between them is so cringy and unintentionally laughable that it makes other underdeveloped romances look like Jack and Rose.
Seeing all these talented actors like Gwendoline Christie, Mandy Moore, Patrick Gibson, and especially Amandla Stenberg hurts mostly because their talents are ultimately stripped and wasted on this very trite film. Bless their souls as they’re all desperately trying to make this film work, but they can’t due to a shitty screenplay that has no distinctive attributes to differentiate itself from a bunch of better choices that fall under the same genre. I bet this movie was written by a dude at home playing Mad Libs with a screenplay as he’s just filling in the blank of scenarios to set up this world, but still has it follow all of the tropes older films succeeded on.I’m not going to blame the director for this. The director of this movie is Jennifer Yuh Nelson who is primarily an animation director (“Kung Fu Panda 2”, “Kung Fu Panda 3”) and story artist (“Kung Fu Panda”, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron”, “Madagascar”) at Dreamworks animation and this is her live action directorial debut. Man, she is way too good for this. Her direction here reminds me so heavily of when Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”, “Wall-E”) ventured into directing live action with “John Carter” but the script was so damn bad that the movie left a negative mark on his name. The same goes for Nelson here. Nelson manages to get decent performances from her actors, BUT GODDAMN THAT SCRIPT IS SO THIN OF SUBSTANCE! She has been a vital part of one of my personal favorite animated film franchises, so seeing her name in the directing credit when the movie ended was like a wooden stake to the heart.
This is not Nelson’s fault.This is Fox blatantly trying to cash in on the Y/A demographic, but this shit has been DONE TO DEATH!“The Darkest Minds” mostly spends it’s time hitting all the requirements on it’s sci-fi Y/A adaptation checklist to make sure it panders straight to it’s targeted demographic.Talented actors that deserve better? CheckA nonexistent romance between two attractive mains? CheckDystopian world where kids fight a political system? CheckA soundtrack where some modern dance party music or manipulative sentimental music that doesn’t fit the scene plays whenever it wants? Check(I mean, I respect that this movie concludes with the song “Find Me” by Sigma because that's a great song.)ARE THERE MUCH BETTER Y/A SCI-FI ADAPTATION FEATURES YOU CAN WATCH AT HOME?
I bet the book (written by Alexandra Bracken) was good or had distinctive qualities. If it does, I’m sorry this movie shat on your work, didn’t give it the justice it deserved, and threw it into a field that is completely dead and disposable nowadays. Someone who read the book, please let me know in the comments if it’s good or if it’s just another Y/A ripoff. But, until then this can go to hell.LAST STATEMENTDevoid of any distinctive factors to have it stand on its own two feet amongst a crowd of better Y/A sci-fi fare of this type, “The Darkest Minds” is a disposable film adaptation that provides nothing but a pretentious desperation for Fox to kick off another franchise.Rating: 0.5/5 | 12%Super Scene: Ruby V. Clancy
