I saw The Darkest Minds, an action thriller based on the first book in the best-selling series by Alexandra Bracken, with my sister and nephew at the drive-in last Saturday. In a dystopian future the majority of the children have been killed by a mysterious illness. The few remaining children have mutated and now have special powers. The government, fearing their powers, has rounded them up and put them in internment camps where they are color-coded and segregated according to their powers: green for enhanced intelligence, yellow for manipulating electricity, blue for manipulating matter, orange for mind control, and red for fire breathing. Those who are orange are deemed too dangerous and are immediately terminated. Ruby (Amandla Stenberg), who is classified as orange, passes for green for several years. When her true powers are discovered, a sympathetic doctor (Mandy Moore), helps her escape from the camp but Ruby isn't sure she can trust her. She eventually teams up with other escaped children, Liam (Harris Dickinson), Charles or "Chubs" (Skylan Brooks), and Suzume of "Zu" (Miya Cech), and they go on a journey to find a place where they can live in safety. I like Y/A dystopian literature because my students like it and I am a fan of anything that gets them reading. I also generally like the movie adaptations of these books but this one is mediocre at best in my opinion. I think it has a lot of plot holes and it is a bit derivative and boring. However, my thirteen-year-old nephew, a member of the target demographic for this movie, absolutely loved it! He really liked how the characters face challenges and overcome the odds to survive in a hostile world. I think this theme is why so many teens like dystopian novels and movies. While I didn't especially like this movie, I definitely recommend it for teens who, I suspect, will love it as much as my nephew!
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