Maggie - Film Review

A few months ago I saw the trailer for a new movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that looked intriguing. It's called MAGGIE, and is a zombie movie. Well, I have always been a big Arnold fan, going all the way back to the 80s where I was obsessed with his films. And I'm a big zombie movie fan too. So I was looking forward to checking this one out.

I rented a copy from Redbox and watched it out last week. It was written by John Scott 3, and directed by Henry Hobson for Lionsgate.

The story concerns a zombie-virus ravaged society. A young girl named Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is trapped in a city under quarantine. She calls her father, Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and urges him not to come looking for her. She is bitten by a zombie and taken to a local hospital where Wade, who disregarded her pleas, finds her. In true Romero fashion Maggie is now infected with the virus herself. In this film the virus has an incubation period of a couple of weeks before the infected person becomes a zombie.

Wade takes Maggie home, and struggles with how to deal with his slowly dying daughter. And that is pretty much the entire story. Maggie hangs out with some friends, the local sheriff warns Wade to deal with his daughter before she becomes a threat, and the film ends on a very predictable note.

This film was a chore to watch. It is incredibly slow paced and there is very little story to it. The colors are intentionally muted, drained of color, and filtered to a drab brownish hue that is just irritating. The biggest problem I had was with the directing/cinematography. In probably a good 80-90% of the shots the camera needs to BACK THE FUCK UP. The camera is just zoomed in too damn close on almost every shot.

The acting is good from everyone involved, and Arnold especially does a fine job here. All the problems with the film stem from poor artistic decisions and the lackluster script and pacing. This is one to avoid, sadly.