The Darkest Minds Movie Review

The Darkest Minds (2018)

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Written by: Chad Hodge (screenplay by), Alexandra Bracken (based upon the novel by)
Directed by: Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Starring:  Amandla Stenberg, Mandy Moore, Bradley Whitford, Harris Dickinson, Gwendoline Christie
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Imprisoned by an adult world that now fears everyone under 18, a group of teens form a resistance group to fight back and reclaim control of their future.

Verdict
This follows the typical young adult formula, but it's so derivative you may not even finish the movie. You've seen most of this before elsewhere. This combines The Maze Runner, X-Men, and a little bit of Star Wars, but fails to come up with an interesting story. It reuses idea from other movies without ever expanding on its own world. Much of this movie is easily predictable, and of course it's left open for a sequel.
Skip it.

Review
This definitely has an X-men vibe to it. One day most of the children in the world die. Those that didn't have special abilities. The government rounds them up to cure them, though they can't be cured, while another faction is trying to help kids. That's the premise of this world and equally as deep as it develops it. It doesn't answer the glaring question of, if the government can't cure the kids, has no one questioned why kids have been imprisoned for six years?
If the answer is the world is scared, it would be nice to develop that a bit.

The protagonist, Ruby, is very powerful. She can mentally control people, but her powers are under developed. She realized she had powers when she accidentally deleted the memories her parents had of her. If you figure that's going to come back in the end, it does. This movie is too predictable.
Despite her lack of training, in her first time using her powers she deletes all memories of herself in an instant. That's funny as later in the movie, it takes a minute to delete a few days worth of memories.

There's a prison break, flashbacks to another prison break, and Ruby ends up with a kid army with the only kid in the world as powerful as her. At this point the movie becomes convoluted The other kid is a megalomaniac bent on ruling the world... or something. Who knows. We're just shown he's bad. Ruby trains with him one time and she has mastered her powers and he's learned her power.

This other kid has an elaborate ruse, but I don't know why. All the world's children have been imprisoned for six years. That's reason enough to fight back. There's no need for a fake president, and safe haven camp for kids actually operating as a military installation.

This leaves the door wide open for a sequel. It's the young adult formula. Base it on a book, make the characters kids and teens, start a fight you don't finish, and then start the movie franchise. The world is never developed enough. There's no subtext to the kids. This could be about children having to grow up too soon or children being marginalized for political gain, but none of that happens. This is mechanical, formulaic and not at all creative. So many scenes in this reminded me of other, better movies.