My unapologetic review of The Darkest Minds movie! Sorry it’s so long (Spoilers, obviously)
This is probably the most difficult review I’ve done yet… That reason being that I LOVED the books, they are still one of my favorite series to this day. However, I saw the movie on Sunday night, and I can’t not post a review of it. So, I’m sorry Darkest Minds fans, myself included, because we aren’t getting a sequel. They did not do a good job.
Let me rephrase what I just said, because I have two opinions on this movie. Whenever there is a book to movie adaptation of something I’ve read, I take my roommate with me to watch, because he offers a “non-reader” standpoint.
So, as we were leaving the theater, I was on cloud 9. He was sitting in the car next to me, being very quiet. I knew he didn’t like it and was afraid to say anything so he didn’t hurt my feelings, but I got him to budge and tell me his problems. So that is why I like the movie, and I hate it.
I like it because this movie was made for me. I hate it because…this movie was made for me. The Darkest Minds fans love it because it is so accurate to the books! Is it, though?
The first half hour or so are so insanely accurate that I thought my head was going to explode. Actually, as far as what we are seeing, the physical scenes, the entire movie was wildly accurate. But it’s when we start to pay attention to what is actually happening that it starts falling apart.
So Ruby is in a camp, it’s basically a concentration camp, and she’s hiding as a green. Okay, but how did that happen? Well, the doctor that examined her found out that she was an orange, and then Ruby made him change the test. Yeah…but why is he able to do that? Why does the computer allow him to manually change the results? Does the machine sometimes not work? That’s the biggest ex-machina I’ve ever seen! Moving forward, she’s at this camp to be “reformed.” Clancy was reformed, so she can be too! Yeah, but 1 kid was reformed, are you telling me that parents across the US actually believe this? Millions of kids in camp, yet 1 was healed. Wow, what a miracle! Take my kid!
The next problem is the camps themselves. There was a specific line of narration or something that said “There is no economy.” That line ruined the movie. There’s no economy? How is anything functioning? The skip tracers, how are the bounties that they collect paid for? How are the guards paid? Where does the money that keeps these camps running come from? If there’s no economy, how does the government pay for all of these camps, the guards, doctors, skip tracers, etc? Speaking of the camps, how are any of them still functioning? You’re telling me that blues, who can move and control anything, are just…walking around? Yellows are not restrained? Blues are not restrained? As if, those kids outnumber you 100 to 1, the camps would be taken over in a day. Even in Caledonia, all it took was 1 blue to break the fence, then they are all home free! You’re telling me that it took years for someone to go, “Guys, we should break the fence!” The security is dumb enough to let the kids walk around unrestrained? There’s no way in hell that any of those camps would have lasted more than a year.
Also, what are other countries doing right now? Since there is NO ECONOMY! If the US collapsed, the rest of the world is coming down with us, considering that we have ¼ of the world’s GDP. Yeah, no, the world is screwed if America just suddenly decided to shut down.
But okay, okay, let’s say it doesn’t. Let’s say by some miracle, the rest of the world is fine. They would still send resources? And by resources, I mean people, of course. They would want to help. What happens when they come to help, realize that the camps are holding kids against their will and are torturing them? The UN would immediately step in and stop every single camp. I’m pretty sure it took the US 3 years to learn about Nazi concentration camps, and that was before the internet! All it takes is one kid, guard, parent, etc. to find out and post something online, then it would be viral, and the world would be in uproar! No way these camps last SIX YEARS!
Also this bothered me in the books too. Why are the guards mean? Like all of them? They torture and beat these kids regularly. Whether they’re scared or not, there is no way every single guard would be totally okay with beating kids, powers or no. They’re still human, unless they only hire sociopaths to be PSF’s?
Okay, so I have more to say about the lack of world building, but y’all get my point. Thanks for the socks scene Fox, but that ain’t gonna cut it. I. Need. Exposition. We. Want. Exposition!
Now let’s talk about the things they added in that were not in the books.
Ruby not being white, who cares? Amandla stole the show. Chubs being green? Fits his personality better anyways. The eye color thing? It’s kind of dumb, because I’m pretty sure that the colors originally came from the defcon color severity system, which is the exact same way as it is in the movies (green meaning good, orange meaning bad). So were the colors named after the defcon system, or the eyes? If it was the eyes, then the defcon system just magically matched up perfectly? I guess…
Anyways, I don’t really care about those changes.. I care about those two scenes, you know the two, that they added in that is just absolute garbage.
The first scene being when Ruby goes back home after escaping the camps. It goes exactly how everyone expected, being that Ruby can’t go home because her parents don’t remember her. Why did they make that scene? What purpose did that serve? We knew exactly what was going to happen. What did SHE think would happen? Did she forget what she did? Of course she didn’t! That scene was stupid and should not have been a part of the movie.
The second scene being that…thing at the end with football field and all the kids with paint or whatever. I talked about this with @itsgalaxy29 and we had similar opinions. What the HELL was that? Those are the kids from East River, I think? Well no, there were not that many kids in East River. So they were the Children’s League kids? So, movie, you’re telling me that they took kids from their duties, their missions, to go into a football field, not say a word, put paint on their hands and foreheads, and just…stand there? No, I can’t think about that scene for than one more minute without wanting to laugh.
Next, let’s talk about pacing. The movie went FAST! The run-time with credits is 1hr 45min, why did they rush everything then? That movie could have been amazing if they spent time world building, taken out the dumb scenes, and had the main actors actually learn stuff about each other. A 2hr 30min movie is pretty common these days, so it’s not like they thought that it was too long. I did not shed a single tear when Ruby took Liam’s memories. Why? Because I didn’t really care about them as a couple yet. In the books they spend, like, months together! The movie took place in…. a few weeks? Sorry Liam, you don’t love Ruby yet. Actually, you barely know Ruby. We get no information about Zu and Chubs at all. Chubs’s only purpose being to say kinda funny jokes, I guess. Zu is there to lead her to the van and then literally becomes pointless the rest of the movie. The main cast, other than Ruby, gets no exposition whatsoever, and by the end of the movie we are supposed to care about what happens to them, yet we don’t. Why should we? We don’t even know Chubs’s last name!
And finally, because I have already made this review freakishly long: Clancy. The worst character by far. In the books he is a troubled bad guy. He has some semblance of good in him, yet he doesn’t do the right thing. He’s basically Magneto. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the books, it isn’t Clancy’s fault that the camp gets compromised. In the movie, Clancy has no reason to be the bad guy. He was tortured by the government and his father for years, and once they ‘cure’ him….he helps them? The movie wants me to believe that Clancy is helping those who tortured him for years. No. He is a villain just so the movie has a villain. We are given no reason for him to be the bad guy. Why would he compromise his own camp? What the hell was that harvest thing? Is this his first ‘harvest,’ or does he do this often? If he has done it before, how is he able to restart the camp? Do new kids show up to just Clancy by himself…and stay? That’s not suspicious at all! And okay this made me so mad, but Chubs wanted to leave because…they made him work. Chubs, of course you have to work! Nothing would get done if the kids didn’t have jobs! You can’t just sit around all day and do nothing! The camp couldn’t physically function!
The problem with this movie is that it shows you the ‘what’ and not the ‘why.’ Fans love this movie so much because they get to see their characters doing what they did in the books. People that haven’t read the books need an explanation as to what is happening and why! That’s why the reviews are so bad. They are lost. They are left wondering what was happening in the last scene, and by then the movie has moved on to the next. A good movie needs exposition, as to which this movie offers slim to none. I originally liked the movie so much because I got see Liam, Ruby, Chubs, and Zu doing shenanigans. My roommate had so many questions as to what was happening that he couldn’t like it. That’s why the movie was made for me, someone who has read the book. I don’t need the exposition, I know it already. That doesn’t make it a good movie. They need to accommodate it to people that haven’t read the book. Otherwise 90% of their audience will be lost, which is what happened.
The book is amazing, if you want to watch the movie, read the book first so you aren’t lost. I give the movie 2 stars, because a part of me still loves it because I did get to see my faves on the big screen. Thanks to @itsgalaxy29 and @kyrahchey for being willing to talk to me about it! If y’all wanna yell at me or share similar opinions, feel free to do so in the comments below. I love a good debate. pce.
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