When teens mysteriously develop powerful new abilities, they are seen as a threat by the government and sent to detainment camps. Sixteen-year-old Ruby soon escapes from her captors and joins other runaways who are seeking a safe haven. Banded together and on the run, they soon combine their collective powers to fight the adults who tried to take away their future.
The Darkest Minds has been a film I've been waiting a long time for, ever since I saw that it was made by the producers of 'Stranger Things' it has been a film I've looked forward to. The film was a really interesting one, with plenty of good and bad points to mention, but what interested me more than anything was the lack of people in the cinema - the film came out on the 10/08/2018 and just a day after release there didn't seem to be many people at the showing at all. It was just a little surprising to me and seemed to set the mood of the film exactly. Anyways less about quantity, let's talk about quality.
The film offered many things that I really liked and enjoyed, such as how at the beginning of the film, we as an audience were dropped straight into the story line and action. This had a really good effect of introducing us to the plot as well as focusing our attention to the film and characters. Speaking of the characters - I feel that they were introduced really nicely through the addition of flash backs. These flash back scenes really helped the audience to understand the characters and to really get 'up and close' to have a personal, friendship type of feeling towards them and this was well received by the audience too. There were a variety of different flashbacks from different characters throughout the film and they were all introduced and depicted well, adding to the community type effect to the characters. Their flashback scenes helped to strengthen the plot and to really help the audience to work out what was happening and why the sudden events happened. The camera angles really helped us to feel this community appeal, through pushing through groups of characters to poking over some shelves in an abandoned shopping center, the camera angles really helped to get the audience involved and it had the effect of making us feel as if we were actually there with the characters in the film - as part of their group which I liked. In this way, the film was able to show power to the characters really well, there were a variety of scenes where the camera angles seemed to really help the film to have its desired effect, the characters in the film were empowered really well and it just really seemed to establish them and their personality types well. These characters where especially interesting when battling the 'bad guys', their dialogue and powers created a really good energy against the enemy/adults in the film that just seemed to really make these confrontations the highlights of the film. But in this sense, the film was very fast moving. We were introduced to the hierarchy of society in the film and the position of children and then we were thrown straight into a battle and confrontation scene - this just really seemed to flow well throughout the film and helped present the plot in an understandable manner.
As the plot developed, we were introduced to a variety of new and exciting characters and these for me, were the best parts of the films. The mysterious characters were introduced in an exciting manner, through a series of unknown causes. The film was able to use scenes like this to create tension and a sense of mystery around the characters perfectly, it felt as if all of the characters had a mysterious, dark side to them which kept them interesting and entertaining to see their relationships develop throughout the film. Scenes such as the group of four raiding the shopping center or sitting around a campfire all seemed to really create a really interesting sense of relationships and helped to give the characters a real sense of personality. But overall, I loved how the themes of adventure and exploration was shown, the film really reminded me of the walking dead due to the scenes and location visuals that were shown to us - rusty and abandoned buildings and cars. The locations that the characters were in just added so much empathy and personality into every scene that the characters were in. Even the 'secret haven' location reminded me of the walking dead and was just presented in such an interesting and intriguing manner - as if they just stumbled upon the location which was a complete surprise to the audience. Towards the ending of the film the two oranges (not fruits...) had therapy sessions to control their powers - these scenes were not only really engaging but they were interesting and surprising as to how they developed and showed off the characters powers. They were really cool to experience and definitely added in a sense of understanding and emotion to the films plot which I thought was nice to experience. Linking to this, I think that the plot idea is a really good one, it is unlike anything I've seen before and it just feels fresh and original to me in this sense. But then at the ending of the film, it evokes a variety of more emotional responses from the audience - mainly sadness when Ruby erases herself from Liam's memory, copying what she did to her parents memory and even though it was slightly confusing - the film executed these types of scenes really nicely to make them emotional but interesting and engaging at the same time. There was plenty of emotion in this film, and it was presented to us as an audience really well; I'd definitely say that the character relationships, some of the scenery's and emotion were my favourite elements of the film.
So what did I not like about the film? I'll start with the presentation of the film, I feel that many parts were presented very poorly such as the dialogue, some scenery (was a bit hit and miss) and general presentation. I'll start off with the dialogue, for many parts the dialogue felt poor, cheap and just unoriginal and boring, simply because it didn't seem to excite or really energise the characters conversations or the feelings that were being conveyed to us. To be fair, it was mainly during the beginning of the film but the use of a boring dialogue between characters is not helpful at all. For example, during the start scene in the camp, many of the conversations just felt blunt and as if the films producers wanted to stay safe and not take any risks - which had the negative effect of actually disillusioning the audience with the characters and making their characteristics slightly confusing.
When I say I didn't like how the film was unoriginal I don't mean the plot, I mean as in how even though there were no children, the shopping centres and everywhere seemed to be derelict and as if there had been a zombie invasion? I just don't feel that many of these abandoned locations were completely necessary and it just ruined the authenticity of the characters and the plot, I understand the economy has crashed but would all the products really be still on the shelves and would hotels be able to open if there is no economy?? These were the types of scenes that just didn't make the film very believable at all, which is a shame. But for many of the scenes, I was left questioning as to how or why something was the way it was - such as the adults being so unprepared for the children to have powers in the camps. Surely if you were in a camp full of children with powers you would protect yourself a bit better? To add insult to injury, many scenes weren't fully covered as much as they should've been - such as the escape from the prison or as to why Ruby was running from someone who had just saved her life? I was left asking myself many of these questions throughout the plot of the film, even though at first glance the plot didn't seem to throw up many points for uncertainty. Some of the characters powers seemed a little far fetched too - don't get me wrong I loved the colour system, but for the red characters to be able to breathe and spit fireballs? It didn't seem to do it for me.
Overall, I would give this film a 7.5. In theory, the film should be amazing due to it's refreshing plot, great scenery's and character relationships. But it is difficult to look over its far fetched elements and questions regarding its authenticity with regards to whether some scenes were realistic and believable or not - which for me they mainly weren't. But like I've said, the film covered a really interesting plot with some great character presentations and intense scenes, but I just seemed to have too many questions and far too much uncertainty for the film to be that successful as Stranger Things was. Maybe this film would be received better if it was on Netflix, as then it would be targeting a specific audience? If you have the chance, I would say that I would recommend it, despite the poor reviews elsewhere.
Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did watching the film and writing this. Have a lovely day. :)
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