The Darkest Minds has some great ideas and moments sprinkled throughout the film, but ultimately, it is uninspired storytelling that wastes its potential on forced build-up rather than execution.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 11, 2024

The film leans into all of the book's worst impulses and, most disappointingly, gives star Amandla Stenberg nothing to do. The FX is on par with other YA films, but the disinterest in exploring this dystopia renders The Darkest Minds hollow.

| Dec 1, 2021

[I]t isn't much of anything new, but must it be this boring? The Darkest Minds is stultifying -- a truly joyless experience of YA clichés and generic, licensed pop songs.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jul 25, 2020

There's nothing that makes a dystopia seem less threatening than a shopping montage in a mall that's lit up by Christmas lights.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Jul 18, 2020

The Darkest Minds highlights something I've found increasingly troubling with Y.A. novels brought to the big screen: future adults hate kids.

| Original Score: C | Jul 9, 2020

The film is so derivative of other young-adult fare of late, it becomes a game of Spot The Reference/Ripoff.

| Jun 20, 2020

Even if one ignores the color-by-numbers template-filling plot devices, this turgid, tired "adventure" fails to excite in just about every way.

| Mar 20, 2020

To say the film suggests a mix of hazy political allegory and Henry Darger's outside-art classic The Story of the Vivian Girls is to make it sound more interesting than it really is.

| Mar 4, 2020

The writing is a big weak point. Characters often say one thing, before immediately contradicting themselves in the same team.

| Oct 29, 2019

Some viewers may enjoy the film, and certainly I didn't hate it, but there are much better films to be seen.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Oct 21, 2019

It is not a terrible movie if compared to 'Twilight', but it does not play well with its own cards, and seems to be the pilot of a series that you'd probably not watch. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 12, 2019

A fine director and a spirited cast are constrained by the seemingly voluntarily imposed genre restrictions. We've seen this done so much better before, and the evidence of a much better film lurks beneath the surface.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 4, 2019

Little is done to make the audience care for the characters which results in the convoluted plot being a chore to sit through.

| Original Score: D- | May 22, 2019

The Darkest Minds might appeal to its target demographic, but they deserve something that isn't this poorly paced or this unoriginal.

| Original Score: 3.5/10 | May 15, 2019

Given that the young adult novel adaption phase has seemingly fizzled out, a product like The Darkest Minds feels like it's arriving a good 5 years too late

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 1, 2019

Bare-bones X-Men facsimile combines all the worst elements of recent young adult fantasy franchises.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Mar 20, 2019

It's enjoyable enough, and the concept alone will probably be enough to keep even the most jaded audiences entertained.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 11, 2019

"The Darkest Minds" is replacement-level cinema, a placeholder of a movie that will be largely forgotten by the time you get to your car.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 6, 2019

Something's off about the storytelling in The Darkest Minds. Primarily, the world building is illogical and lacks cohesion. It's a fast food movie -- kind of bad but kind of good, and on a late night with your friends it'll be kind of tasty.

| Original Score: C- | Jan 13, 2019

In the end, nothing can overcome the feeling of a dystopian déjà vu. If only a little imagination had been thrown in to stir things up.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 22, 2018