An utterly uninspired teen dystopian film that redefines the meaning of “forgettable cinema.”
A mysterious disease is killing children worldwide. Those who survive develop new abilities – some become smarter, others learn to control electricity or shoot lava from their mouths. The most dangerous (including, of course, the main character) can read minds and even implant their own, much like the protagonist of “Preacher.” Terrified by such rampant puberty, adults eagerly send their offspring to special facilities where they are treated with a nonexistent cure and, essentially, used as slaves. The main character, Ruby, escapes captivity and stumbles upon a group of similar outcasts who are searching for a semi-mystical place where all children live in peace and tranquility.
According to ancient lore, every few years a film is released whose existence cannot be rationally explained. It’s made out of place, out of time, and has no chance of remaining not only in history but even in the memory of its few viewers. And yet, here it is – “The Darkest Minds” shining on hundreds of thousands of screens worldwide. Unnecessary, pre-forgotten, a black sheep among current blockbusters. A youth dystopian film released at a time when even the relatively well-known “Divergent” and “Maze Runner” are flopping at the box office. A straightforward metaphor for racism, created when it’s customary to talk about racism openly.
There’s a persistent feeling that the film was planned for release about seven years ago – not that it would have been received much better then, but there would have been at least some logic to its existence. “The Darkest Minds,” with its endless deus ex machina moments, soundtrack of stale pop hits, and tone that changes more often than the characters utter the sacred “They fear us,” truly feels like a project straight from production hell – though that depends on your perspective.
Reinventing the Genre
If you’re going to make teen dystopian films in 2018, it should only be with someone like Matthew Vaughn, or at least James Gunn at the helm. Someone who can deconstruct the genre and reassemble it, breathe new life into its stale carcass, create a “Lord of the Flies” for Generation Z. Jennifer Yuh, the director of the last two “Kung Fu Panda” films, didn’t set such a goal for herself, and even if she had, the result would likely have been just as dismal.
Visual Shortcomings
Unlike her fellow animators Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton, for whom the transition from animation to live-action cinema was seamless in terms of visual expression, Yuh, having lost her metaphorical brushes and paints, seems to have lost her hands and eyes. Real space turned out to be far beyond her competence: the direction here is on par with mediocre fan films, with their typical amateur mistakes – non-montage shots, crooked framing, and completely broken dynamics.
A Lack of Passion?
Yuh’s incompetence as a live-action director is so glaring that one might wonder – did she even care? But even if she didn’t, it’s hard to blame her, just as it’s hard to imagine anyone making such a story with a sparkling gleam in their eyes. It seems the screenwriters were playing an extremely perverse version of “Bingo,” where instead of numbers, there are clichés of teen dystopian films. A special hero? Check. A sudden love line? Check. “They’re killing us because they’re afraid”? Also there. Sudden twists involving government characters? You bet! A blatant hint at a sequel that will never happen because no one cares about the first part? That’s bingo!
“The Darkest Minds” is not worth discussing, it’s even boring to mock it. The film has no ambitions, it seems to understand deep down how ridiculous its existence is in itself. It’s a pity that Twentieth Century Fox didn’t realize this in time, and now “The Darkest Minds” will remain an unfortunate misunderstanding on the resume of the company, the good actor Harris Dickinson, and the animation director who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jennifer Yuh would probably like to have the ability of her animated hero right now and erase the film from the face of the earth with one graceful flick of her little finger