'The Darkest Minds' Trailer: A Little Bit 'X-Men' A Little Bit 'Hunger Games'

Movies franchises based on a series of young adult novels have, let’s just call it a checkered past. For every Harry Potter and Hunger Games, we get a flailing series like Divergent that limped along for a few chapters, and nonstarters like The Fifth Wave and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, that never get off the ground. So, audiences are wary about endeavors of this ilk, but that’s not going to stop Hollywood from trying. The latest attempt is The Darkest Minds. I know nothing about this saga, but I’m actually kind of into the new trailer for the film.

Movie Review: 'The Divergent Series: Allegiant'

There’s a definite hierarchy in the world of dystopian young adult movie adaptations. The Hunger Games obviously ruled the roost for four movies, and The Maze Runner films have found a nice spot in the marketplace. But for every successful franchise there are a handful of nonstarters—I Am Number Four, The Mortal Instruments—that never find an audience, despite the popularity of the source novels. The Divergent Series films are a kind of middle ground. They’re not huge, record-shattering affairs, but they’re popular enough that they keep coming, and while they’ve never been particularly egregious, they’ve been, at best, innocuous. The latest chapter, however, The Divergent Series: Allegiant, takes a precipitous nosedive from bland and forgettable to straight up terrible.

Movie Review: 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2'

As the title implies, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 is not a movie that tells a complete story. While last year’s Mockingjay—Part 1 was like watching the first half of a to-be-continued TV episode, Part 2 is a lot like picking up a book, opening to the middle, and starting from there. For those of you familiar with the dystopian woes of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and the drama in the near-future world of Panem, this provides a mostly satisfactory conclusion the saga.

'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials' Movie Review

At the tail end of last summer, director Wes Ball dropped yet another adaptation of yet another dystopian young adult novel into our laps with The Maze Runner, and, much to the surprise of many, it was a blast. Not as good as The Hunger Games movies by a good margin, it is a damn sight better than the Divergent films. Made on the cheap, it was also a highly profitably endeavor, and now the sequel, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, is here in the same slot to continue the saga of a bunch of amnesiac teenage boys.

'Insurgent' Movie Review: A Murderous Fever Dream Mixed With Tepid Teen Melodrama

The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the latest chapter in The Hunger Games heir apparent, is a flaming-hot, crazy-ass train wreck. And I mean that in both the most entertaining and terrible ways possible. To be sure, this is a significant improvement over the previous film in the family, 2014’s Divergent. It’s not without serious flaws, and I don’t know if I’d go so far to call it good or actually recommend it, but while it can be tedious and asinine, random weirdness and strange flourishes mean it can also be pretty damn entertaining.

'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part1' Movie Review: All Smoke, No Fire

There are parts of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 that are harrowing, moving, and action-packed. While that can be fun to watch, and there are some nice bits of spectacle level eye candy, including the destruction of a massive damn, the problem is that the film never becomes more than simply the first part in a larger saga. This makes sense, obviously, as the third book in Suzanne Collins’ dystopian young adult trilogy has been split into two movies, but in this case, the film is all build up and feels like it’s just killing time before getting to the meaty part of the story.

'The Maze Runner' Movie Review

Reading James Dashner’s best-selling young adult novel The Maze Runner, I wasn’t particularly impressed. That said, this is one of those rare times when you read a book, and though you don’t think much of the work as it is, you think to yourself that this might make a decent movie. Sure, the writing may be lackluster—just because it’s for a younger audience doesn’t mean you should be able to get away with subpar writing, but that’s a discussion for another time and place—and the characters are so-so, but there a number of elements that could translate well from the page to the screen.

'The Giver' Movie Review

The Giver is set in a bland dystopian world where all color, joy, and emotion has been sucked out of life. Everything that has ever proven even a slight problem has been removed, from all of the troubling things that make us human all the way down to weather and even hills—walking up a hill is hard, guys. This is a lukewarm, passive aggressive dystopia where everyone looks the same, the sun always shines, and your family is chosen for you based on what little personality you’re allowed to show. From a young age you’re taught to use precise language, and despite the color scheme of the movie, shades of grey are frowned upon.