Review of Maximum Ride (2016) by Shelby P — 29 Sep 2016

This was rough watching. I read a majority of the books in my youth, so while they weren't fresh in my mind, I remember the general details.

This movie plays out like the first 75% of the book -- they don't make it to New York or "the school" here, so no "sewer" scene (which was graphic enough that I remember it years later). No Total the talking dog here, either.

The ages were fudged -- Nudge is a young teen more flat than even her book portrayal. Iggy is about the same age as Max and Fang here. Perhaps more glaringly, Max is completely white-washed in this movie (SPOILERS: We know her to be half-Hispanic as early as the second book, and while Patterson described her looks differently from book to book, the majority of her descriptions point her to a Hispanic brunette). Fang, if I recall correctly, was also of a more olive bent.

Yet, plot-wise, the movie stays pretty close to the book -- remember, this was a James Patterson-probably-ghost-written YA series, so it wasn't stellar to begin with. Neither was the dialogue.

The real issue (beyond even the horribly cheap, 10 year old special effects) is the acting. I actually looked up the kid who plays Gazzy after the movie because he was literally the only good actor -- probably could have carried the whole film. Sure enough, he's got quite the resume for a young actor. The actress who plays Max, however, sure stood out with how poor her acting was -- and the Canadian accent was pretty apparent, and a bit at odds with the character growing up in the exact same environment as the other parts of the "flock.".

Overall: Could have been fun. The books were never great, but they were always fast-paced fluff. This movie had a fraction of the action and thrills, and even the fluff was rough.