Review of Maggie (2015) by Frédéric H — 08 May 2015

Maggie is a film set in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has gone around that gradually turns people into zombies, but unlike many films set in this genre this film focuses entirely on the human aspect and how it affects the victim and their family over time. It goes all out trying to evoke emotions in the audience by following the father (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the decisions he has to make in order to try to save his daughter (Abigail Breslin). But I have to say this film had a lot of potential but I felt that that potential was wasted and I was quite disappointed. I went into this film really wanting to see the relationship between father and daughter evolve over the course of this film and although we did get bits and pieces of that I didn't think it was enough. The scenes where we do get to see father and daughter together are really good scenes, they are interesting and at times get a little emotional but it was great seeing them interacting on screen and seeing how the virus affects not only the victim but also the father. But throughout the film quite a bit of time is spent elsewhere with the daughter and some other characters or by herself or the father with some other characters, and most of those scenes really don't add a whole lot to the film.

Also if you are expecting to get a fast pace then you will be very disappointed, because this movie moves really really slow, but at least it stays consistently slow I guess. But the pace didn't really bother me as much because both Abigail Breslin and Arnold Schwarzenegger were great in this film. I wasn't all that surprised that Abigail did great but I have to say I was for Arnold, that was my worry before I saw the film; that he wouldn't be able to pull off a serious, emotional character but he did it really well. The plot was basic, pretty simple stuff, so it was really the performances that carried this film through its relatively short run time. In the end Maggie was a film that had a lot of potential but dropped the ball by not focusing on the right elements and had a pretty weak plot, but the performances by the two leads were great and elevate the film just enough so you can get something out of it. - 6.