The Darkest Minds

Based on a novel by Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds, which transpires in a world where youths have been afflicted with powers ranging from innocuous to deadly, follows Amandla Stenberg’s Ruby as she escapes from a punishing government facility and joins up with three other affected teenagers (Harris Dickinson’s Liam, Miya Cech’s Zu, and Skylan Brooks’ Chubs) en route to a supposed sanctuary for their kind. It’s immediately apparent that filmmaker Jennifer Yuh Nelson has no loftier goal than cranking out yet another generic, teen-centric dystopian drama (along the lines of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner), as The Darkest Minds suffers from a run-of-the-mill quality that’s woefully prevalent in all its various attributes – with the less-than-engrossing atmosphere compounded by Nelson’s inability to wholeheartedly develop the movie’s sci-fi universe (ie it feels as though whole chunks of the book have been omitted from Chad Hodge’s screenplay). The affable work from the various actors is subsequently rendered moot, and it’s clear, too, that the midsection’s episodic bent ensures that The Darkest Minds grows less and less interesting as it progresses – although, to be fair, Nelson at least does manage to pepper the proceedings with a handful of admittedly compelling interludes (including a thrilling and unapologetically over-the-top third-act sequence involving a psychic battle between the picture’s two factions). By the time the frustratingly open-ended conclusion rolls around, The Darkest Minds has certainly confirmed its place as a fairly disposable entry within a long-since-played-out genre – with the potential for future installments looking unlikely, to say the least.

** out of ****