See This: "The Darkest Minds" Starring Amandla Stenberg

I went to see The Darkest Minds last weekend, and I really liked this movie. I hadn’t read the books before seeing the film, which is rare for me. I hadn’t even heard of these books. I was about 20 minutes in when I pulled out my phone and ordered them from Amazon. Now, you may think “You PULLED OUT YOUR PHONE?” Here’s the thing, I was almost alone in the theater. The nearest people were 5 rows away and wouldn’t have seen my phone. This is one reason I why wanted to write this post. This movie deserves so much more box office love than the barely $10 million it’s received. I don’t think the other books will make it to the screen because of it. But it has acting and effects. I can’t speak to story because I’m not sure what the story is. Did they just have a bad script?

The Trailer

Acting

This film has some heavy hitters, This is Us mom Mandy Moore, Bradley Whitford from Get Out and West Wing, and an almost unrecognizable Gwendoline Christie from Game of Thrones and Star Wars. But the weight of the film fell on on Amandla Stenberg, who stars as Ruby. We will see Amandla later this year in The Hate U Give. Amandla was amazing and I loved her portrayal as Ruby. She is able to play strong and vulnerable in this film. Such a range of emotions. And when I looked her up on iMDB I was impressed to see that she played Rue in The Hunger Games. Really impressive resume for a 19-year old. She’s got a great year ahead of her.

Ruby (AMANDLA STENBERG) in Twentieth Century Fox’s THE DARKEST MINDS

Effects and Story

There were so many great throws to mutant powers but I didn’t feel it was X-Men overkill at all. There’s a tier like a food pyramid or the terrorism threat level that each of the kids have been assigned. Orange is the top threat because they have mind control. Red’s are next down the list and they are destructive. Yellows can control electricity, Blues have telekinesis and Greens are geniuses. Oranges and Reds are exterminated on site. I don’t want to say who the bad guy/villains is/are but they handled it so well. It had the possibility to become such a great Hunger Games-esque trilogy.

Liam (Harris Dickenson) in Twentieth Century Fox’s THE DARKEST MINDS

The book came out in 2012 and the resistance seen in these kids in this film is similar to what we see in our kids in America doing, like the Parkland Students organizing and standing up to the government in a dystopian future.

The Love Story

As with any YA story there has to be a love interest. I loved that this wasn’t overt and it was the biggest part of of why I wanted the rest of the movies! I didn’t feel chemistry was forced. I love Liam and Ruby together.