Darkest Minds, The |
USA • 2018 • 104m •
  • Directed by: Jennifer Yuh Nelson. • Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Mandy Moore, Bradley Whitford, Gwendoline Christie, Harris Dickinson, Patrick Gibson, Miya Cech, Mark O'Brien, Wallace Langham, Golden Brooks, Wade Williams, Makenzie Collier, Skylan Brooks. • Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch.      When teens mysteriously develop powerful new abilities, they are declared a threat by the government and detained. Sixteen-year-old Ruby, one of the most powerful young people anyone has encountered, escapes her camp and joins a group of runaway teens seeking safe haven. Soon this newfound family realizes that, in a world in which the adults in power have betrayed them, running is not enough and they must wage a resistance, using their collective power to take back control of their future.
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Review:
If you want to form a sentence with the words "monotony", "mediocrity", "clichéd sameness" and "corny", you can do that without any problems along with the movie title "The Darkest Minds". Well, I'm getting sick of the concept of dystopian teen films. Even though they mixed it this time with a kind of "X-men" mood. Apart from some crackling electrical flashes, a storm with trees crashing down and flying containers, there's not much more to see here. And don't expect impressive special effects either.
Actually, I already had the feeling while watching "The 5th Wave" that after the successful franchises of "Divergent" and "The Hunger Games" we would be flooded with weak duplicates of this genre for years. Duplicates of which they hoped it could be the start of again some successful sequels. However, I'm afraid this is yet again another feeble attempt that will fail. Simply because "The Darkest Minds" is really embarrassingly bad.
This time it's not a devastating war or an alien invasion that makes our planet a place where survival is priority number one. No, it's a sudden emerging disease (Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration) that actually kills about 95% of young people. I suppose this is a kind of childhood disease of a higher level. And those who survive suddenly have supernatural powers.
They are locked up straight away in youth camps by the adult world. Allegedly to examine them and to find a cure. Ultimately it's because these adults, like with the X-men, are afraid of mutants and secondly because they are afraid to lose power. There, on the basis of their acquired powers, those kids are divided into groups. Each with a specific color, whereby those from the orange and red camp are considered to be the most dangerous. In other words, persons who're allocated to these two groups, simply are going to be eliminated. Likewise, the lovely girl Ruby (Amandla Stenberg) who appears to be part of the orange team after being tested.
For the umpteenth time, we see how moronic and stupid adults are portrayed in these kinds of films. Orange means that a person has the ability to manipulate someone else's thoughts. You don't need to be an Einstein to know how Ruby manages to save herself from this life-threatening situation. The moment Ruby escapes from this concentration camp and joins a group of teenagers, you can get ready for the most sugar-coated and predictable storyline ever.
The group of teenagers, consisting of Liam (Harris Dickinson), Chubs (Skylan Brooks) and Zu (Miya Cech), are looking for a kind of youth camp where children are safe. It's led by a legendary figure with the name "The Slip Kid ". And before you know it, love is in the air and Ruby finds the ultimate hint to find out where the camp is located. And finally, there's also a mandatory plot twist. Only viewers who have fallen asleep above their popcorn, haven't seen that one coming. The only thing I could appreciate was the end. I can't say it was really original. But it's kind of daring. But I came real quick to my senses when I realized that sequels with similar nonsense are likely to be released in the future.
To be honest, you can't blame the film studios to release such films. After all, the profit is the most important thing for them. And when a specific genre is already a hype for a number of years, you have to continue with it until the subject has been completely milked dry. And as long as the theaters fill up with teenage girls (With helmets on because they run into walls while being constantly focused on their smartphones) who dream away while watching a film full of female heroism and who swoon when looking at a handsome Boyband-like wuss, the studios continue to produce these type of movies.
Till one day when those youngster themselves exclaim in disgust (the age of reason probably) that they've had enough. And despite the political correctness in this film and the moral of equality (an "It doesn't matter what color you are"-like message), it still remains mediocre crap with superheroes in it. So even though colors play an important role in "The Darkest Minds", it's just a colorless (and also uninspired) teenage film.
Review by peterp-450-298716 from the Internet Movie Database.
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