• IMDB: 5.6/10
• Rotten Tomatoes: 4.1/10
• CP: 5.0/10

The Darkest Minds is yet another movie about people with superpowers. Based on a novel by Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds is about a group of kids on the run from a corrupt government that wants to control or eradicate all of the superpowered children. It’s like a mix between the X-Men movies and Hunger Games, just with a much smaller budget.

Ruby, played by Amandla Stenberg is an orange, the most powerful of the kids because they can control people’s minds. The film follows her as she escapes one of the concentration camps for superpowered kids and hooks up with Liam, Chubbs and Zoo. Together, the four of them try to find the superpowered kid promise land where they’re free too live in peace and harmony with other superpowered kids. And of course, while they’re on the run evading bounty hunters, The League and the government, a budding romance develops between two of the characters that never really develops enough to impact the film’s ending the way the filmmakers hoped.

I was completely on board for the concept but the movie was filled with the promise of dopeness and never really fulfilled that promise. I was never a big fan of the Hunger Games series but that had more to do with the lead actress than it did anything story-related. In this movie, it’s almost the opposite. I enjoyed the young actors’ performances but they weren’t given much to work with here. I haven’t read the book so I can’t use it to compare, but I would hope the novel provided more depth to the characters, allowing the readers to really become invested in their relationships, backstories and ultimately their fates. The script for The Darkest Minds definitely didn’t do that for me.

The inner turmoil that Ruby deals with throughout the movie is practically shoved down our throats as we’re forced to relive the worst moment of her life over and over again. Without spoiling it too much, Ruby does something really bad in the beginning of the movie and carries the weight of that act for what feels like the rest of our lives.

In my opinion, the most interesting character and best performance is Liam, played by Harris Dickinson. Liam is the “big brother” of the group and keeps them all safe. He also has a backstory that hints that he’s also some kind of hero and savior to other superpowered kids everywhere. Unfortunately, we don’t get too much detail about his past life but if we had, it might have made his current life a little more interesting.

The Darkest Minds wants so badly to be the next Hunger Games or Divergent series. I think if it had at least made it to the level of those films, I probably would have enjoyed it better than the other two, given my affinity for the superhero genre. But sadly, it falls short of the much more interesting stories and conflicts in those series, which has probably condemned it to be a one-off instead of the first installment in an exciting series.

Memorable Moment: At the end, Ruby makes a sacrifice in a scene that succeeds in its attempts to be emotional and touching after several earlier attempts to tug on the audience’s heartstrings, fall short.