#REVIEW: “THE DARKEST MINDS”

Review by George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong

After the global financial and critical success of The Hunger Games Trilogy, Hollywood has been starving for that next Sci-Fi Young Adult Novel hit. While Films in the genre have been hit or miss admittedly, this start of a potential movie Trilogy hopes to achieves some stratospheric success.

A never-explained epidemic called IAAN kills over 90% of the children in the country. For another unexplained reason, those who survived have five supernatural powers and are assigned to five colour groups. The Blues are super-smart; the Greens have telekinetic abilities; the Yellows can harness electricity. These three groups are safe. Those youngsters whom are deemed Orange or Red must be captured and killed immediately.

Meet Ruby. Six years after she is taken away from her parents, she is still living in a concentration camp-like environment. Ruby is Orange, but has the ability to control minds and thus has passed herself off as Green as she controlled the mind of the doctor who diagnosed her.

At the camp, Ruby meets a trustworthy doctor (played by Mandy Moore) who tells her about The Children’s League and helps her escape. Things go awry and Rose has now aligned herself with three new people she meets: the hunky Green (Liam), the bespectacled Blue, (Chubs) and the mute Yellow (Zu). As they hide from bounty hunters, they wind-up at a camp where other children live without fear of being captured as its de facto leader Clancy, is the son of the President of the United States. Clancy has the mentioned disease, but his father deems he has been cured. Everything culminates in a huge violent battle where our four heroes are now separated and face their own obstacles that sets-up perfectly for a Sequel.

Truth be told, I am not the target demographic for THE DARKEST MINDS but  that being said, I confess, I liked this Movie. Yes, there are many long, lagging stretches and illogical bits, but I admired the work of Amandla Stenberg (seen next in TIFF selection The Hate U Give) as Ruby despite perhaps one too many crying scenes. I am also an unabashed fan of Harris Dickinson who plays Liam, whose versatility can been seen in  Beach Rats and Postcards from London, plus TV miniseries Trust. Additionally, the chemistry between his Liam and Ruby was spot-on. I also enjoyed the performance of Gibson as Clancy.

I don’t care if this next sentence haunts me forever, but I am looking forward to seeing how THE DARKEST MINDS fares as it shows promise!

20th Century Fox Canada release THE DARKEST MINDS Friday, August 3, 2018.