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The Darkest Minds
By Sandie Angulo Chen,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Skilled actors can't save derivative, violent YA thriller.
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The Darkest Minds
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Based on 19 parent reviews
A great movie!
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The best movie
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What's the Story?
THE DARKEST MINDS is based on the first book in Alexandra Bracken's best-selling dystopian series. The movie starts with a young Ruby Daly (Lidya Jewett) realizing that kids and teens are dying from a child-afflicting supervirus. She survives, but something is different. On the night of her 10th birthday, she touches her parents while they sleep, and by morning, her mom doesn't recognize her and calls the authorities, who take her away. Six years later, Ruby (now played by Amandla Stenberg) is in a prison camp for young survivors, all of whom have superpowers categorized by color: Greens are the least threatening and have enhanced intelligence, blues are telekinetic, and golds can control electricity. And then there are the two dangerous colors: oranges, who can control and enter peoples' minds, and reds, who are pyrokinetic and breathe fire. Ruby is an orange who uses her power to pose as a green. After a prison doctor/resistance fighter (Mandy Moore) helps Ruby escape, she teams up with a van full of two teens and one child -- "blue" Liam (Harris Dickinson), "green" Charles aka Chubs (Skylan Brooks), and "gold" Zu (Miya Cech). Together, the quartet avoids trackers and bounty hunters and searches for East River, a supposed secret haven for kids that's run by the elusive "Slip Kid."
Is It Any Good?
Despite starring a YA-film veteran (Stenberg) and coming from page-turning source material, this adaptation suffers from a lackluster script and derivative dystopian themes. On paper, the 2012 story was impossible to put down, but on screen, the movie is predictable and unevenly paced. Worse, Chad Hodge's script is clunky and results in unintentional laughter. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson did a wonderful job with the two Kung Fu Panda movies she helmed, but here there's so much left to be desired; from the dialogue to the editing to the various plot holes that aren't remotely answered, there's not much to support this film being worth the price of admission (much less warranting the sequels to complete Ruby's story).
Stenberg is a talented actress, and she's more than up to carrying a movie. Unfortunately, Ruby's character in this fim is reduced to "chosen one" stereotypes, and the romance, which is so heartfelt in the book, is cute but also a little too inevitable. Dickinson's Liam is handsome and earnest enough, but the movie's love story doesn't offer viewers the high-stakes build-up of Tris and Four in Divergent or Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games. There's a minor (and short-lived) love triangle, but most viewers will see right through the other character's intentions. Hollywood should perhaps leave the big-concept YA sci-fi/dystopian/fantasy series to television and concentrate on realistic contemporary and period movies that are harder to get wrong. Bracken's books are quite entertaining, but this adaptation is far from compelling.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about The Darkest Minds and the popularity of post-apocalyptic/post-crisis stories. What's appealing about them? What are some other books and movies that feature a similarly bleak future?
How does Ruby compare to other female protagonists in young adult books and movies? What are her views on love, marriage, and kids, and how are they tied to the unimaginably dire circumstances she endures?
Fans of the book: How does the movie compare to the book? What are the main differences? Is it different to see violence rather than to read about it?
How do the characters demonstrate courage, self-control, teamwork, and perseverance? Why are these important character strengths?
Movie Details
- In theaters: August 3, 2018
- On DVD or streaming: October 30, 2018
- Cast: Amandla Stenberg , Harris Dickinson , Mandy Moore
- Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson
- Inclusion Information: Non-Binary actors, Bisexual actors, Pansexual actors, Black actors, Female actors
- Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Topics: Book Characters , Friendship
- Run time: 105 minutes
- MPAA rating: PG-13
- MPAA explanation: violence including disturbing images, and thematic elements
- Last updated: November 3, 2022
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