The Darkest Minds

The book is probably better. This YA story is derivative and generic, and it manages to telegraph who the baddie is much earlier than it means to. Amandla Stenberg is pretty good as star Ruby (she also played Rue in the Hunger Games), but the movie feels more like a cheapie you'd find on ABC Family Channel.

The Darkest Minds is the latest teen sci-fi franchise alike Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight, The Host etc etc etc and alike the majority of them will never be a fully told story.

It tells the tale of a world where 90% of kids die leaving the remaining ones with a selection of super powers (For some unexplained reason). The government rounds them up and incarcerates them out of fear killing off the more powerful ones.

It follows the tale of one girl who is smuggled out and goes on the run. But who can she trust?

Personally I loved the concept, such potential! Under the circumstances a television series would have made a tremendous amount more sense as I think this is all we're ever going to see from the Darkest Minds universe.

Our leading lady is fantastic, truly stellar performance and it wasn't until late in the film I realised it was Rue from the Hunger Games (2012) all grown up. Alongside her we have the excellent Bradley Whitford, Wade Williams, Mandy Moore and Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie (Though all of them are rather brief).

One thing that struck me was the leading man Harris Dickinson, he just wasn't up to the job in any respect and felt like a weak link throughout. I can't imagine how he got the job and question castings logic with that one.

The main issue with the movie is that it's the same as the rest. What I mean by that is these teen sci-fi types take a concept and then surround it by the usual tropes that are so blatant and so excessive it damages them beyond repair. This made the film cliched beyond words and criminally predictible.

All things considered it could be worse but all the teen sci-fi tropes, the fact this is all we'll get and thus leaving us with an incomplete story and a weak leading man stopped any potential it had dead in its tracks.

Great for what it is and I see the appeal, but this is to the movie industry what pop is to the music industry.

The Good:

Amandla Stenberg

Decent supporting cast

Some very good ideas

Hearts in the right place

The Bad:

Too many tropes

Very cliched

Harris Dickinson

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Hollywood needs to go back to the drawing board on this genre

A world without kids sounds like my kind of place

But overall I enjoyed it! They took some liberties with some casting choices. Never really did introduce Sam at all, which was disappointing. Took some liberties with the storyline, but overall, I think it was worth watching. Plus, I think they can only get better at these movies with the next three in the series!

Even though the movie may be fast paced, and may leave out parts that were in the book... it is very interesting and the characters and acting really save the show here.

Yes, the relationships weren't fully developed like in the novel , but it's hard to do that in an hour and a half long movie. I think Harris, Amandla, Skylan, and Miya really stoke the show here.

The movie FORSURE isn't oscar award winning but the amazing feelings I got while watching made up for that! Give the movie a chance and don't listen to the Uber negative reviews! Give the movie a chance because if you do, I can guarantee you will enjoy it(:

I am not sure why people are giving 1 to this film, there are plenty films deserve a 1 than this one. The trailer is pretty in line with the film. Believable characters and the actors gave a pretty good performances. Overall I enjoyed it very much. If you like hunger games, this is similar. I would definitely recommend this film to others! I hope there are sequels coming!