From Twilight and The Hunger Games, to more recent features like Ender's Game, Divergent and The Giver. We now have the first of a trilogy of post-apocalyptic stories.
Weirdly, the director chosen for this potentially successful trilogy was given to Wes Ball, a heavily inexperienced director. It is a pretty big risk for a major movie studio (20th Century Fox), but with the cast nearly consisting entirely of teenagers and young adults, this looks to be a mass learning curve for everyone involved.
For a first big feature, I felt it was a pretty solid start to his and many others careers. Throughout, I could see the potential in this till the very end. But I do not think the ideas were to put to best use and the constant flaws and general flimsiness of it all made it o.k viewing.
I do not usually unravel films as much as this, but a lot of it was so obvious that it made me question the source material.
So I think for what Ball has been given, I felt he did a solid job. The performances were perfectly fine with a few minor stand-outs and the action shots had reasonable amounts of tension.
The ending felt really tense. But as I was leaving the cinema, I was gradually picking it apart until it eventually became a big mess on the ground. It was a huge shame as at first I quite enjoyed the ending. I was enjoying the ideas, but when I was breaking it apart, it just did not make sense and felt that it just did not make sense anymore.
A lot of actors lead by Dylan O'Brien did a decent job. Blake Cooper and Thomas Brodie-Sangster did good jobs in giving us characters we can care about. As for Kaya Scodelario, she either felt totally mis-castor her character is actually not that pleasant. I guess I will have to wait to see the development of her character in the next installment as I am not a book person.
The big standout performance has to be Will Poulter. His performances in Son Of Rambow and The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Drawn Treader showed everyone his potential. Thankfully he has bucked the tread of many child actors to become a proven young adult actor. You can see the experience and talent in him and the casting choice was perfect as it seems the character was a very interesting one.
After an exciting opening, the rest of the film had an o.k paced to it and then a heavily flawed remainder. Also, there were a serious of moments during the film made the ending not as surprising which I think was a schoolboy error by the director. But I think the problem is with the flimsy source material rather than the directing skills.
I think Ball will get a nice amount of box-office takings, but I am afraid I will not be buying this when it is out on DVD.
Once you think about it, it is really not that compelling. This sort of idea has been much better in books and films decades before this was made. Nevertheless, I will be interested to see the sequel.
Rating: 7/10
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