The Darkest Minds Review

The Darkest Minds Movie Poster

Wow, where do I even begin with the madness I just witnessed?

The Darkest Minds is a YA Movie that probably should've come out in 2013, but here it is: in 2018. 

(Sigh)

I'm willing to give these films a chance unlike many others. Sometimes, something good will come out. For example: 3/4 of The Hunger Games and 2/3 of Maze Runner. But most of them aren't very good. I don't think I've seen one of these films that's as aggressively bad as The Darkest Minds, however. It's a film that's either painfully boring or gutbustingly hilarious. Honestly, I can't decide which one to go with.

First of all, let me just say that the overall concept is brilliant. I actually like it much more than Divergent's concept, which I find boring. But in this film, kids mysteriously start dying randomly and the ones who survive become mutants (this doesn't affect adults, though). Then, they're basically sent to concentration camps and are given color labels to evaluate how much of a threat they can be. Orange equals very dangerous and if i'm not mistaken, the kids with that designation get sent to die. If executed well, this could be a neat sci-fi drama or even a fun prison-break thriller. But why would they do that when could just make the most by-the-books (literally) YA adaptation you can think of. What could possibly go wrong?

EVERYTHING

Having a good concept doesn't carry a movie entirely. A great film has an interesting setup, but still recognizes the fact that it needs an interesting series of events to follow it. A great example of this is Inception: awesome concept, yet the film also has great action and complex themes to fit its very long run-time. It uses its brilliant concept to tell a much bigger story inside of it. In The Darkest Minds, the setup is fine, but the film doesn't utillize it to anything remotely interesting. Instead, most of the film just some teens riding in a van with their angst in full throttle. Oh yeah, that aspect is probably the most painful thing to watch in the film. The relationship between Amandla Stenberg and the dude who could use the force (or something) wasn't remotely believable. If you want a good teen romance movie that's sweet, funny, awkward, and believable, watch the Netflix movie Candy Jar. That movie gets it right. Instead of making me cry, which is what I'm almost certainly sure was what it was going for, The Darkest Minds made me laugh. The line delivery, the dialogue, the inserted "drama", and just the general level of cringe that these scenes contained were absolutely hilarious. Why do these YA movies have to always be Sci-Fi Romance films? I don't think it's a great combination at all.

I mentioned the dialogue in my last point. It's horrendous: the lines that are supposed to be serious are hilarious while the lines that are supposed to be funny left me with a void of no emotion. The acting is also pretty terrible across the board, with one glaring exception: Amandla Stenberg. Yes, the one thing that this trainwreck has going for it is that it has an exceptional lead actress who I think might be the next big thing. Don't get me wrong, her dialogue is so, so bad, but Amandla made it work to the best of her ability. Her performance in this film actually increased my anticipation for The Hate U Give, which is another YA movie that happens to NOT be Sci-Fi. I really want to see how well she does in an emotional, politically-charged Drama, considering that her role in this awful Sci-Fi Romantic Thriller. But like I said, the rest of the cast is terrible. Many of the actors were from the UK yet played Americans, and it clearly showed. Also, Mandy Moore just can't catch a break outside of This Is Us. Just saying.

Finally, the ending is so clearly setting up a sequel (which will never happen, because this bombed big-time at the box office), that it adds insult to injury. It feels like an incomplete movie, yet in its current state, you wouldn't want to see what other stories could be told in this universe. It's just simply a pointless film that I will completely forget about by the end of this week. Heck, I already forgot about most of the film and (at the time of writing this) I just watched the movie last night!

SCORE: 1/10

Avoid at all costs. Enough said. An endless loop of the kiss from Jumanji 2 would be a better romantic film than this.

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