Maggie

Dir: Henry Hobson

Year: 2015

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin

Genre: Drama/Horror

Cert: 15

Rating: ★★★

IMDb

Henry Hobson's bleak and moody zombie drama kicks off what I hope is a new dramatic career for the action legend, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He plays Wade, a man searching in a hospital during the early stages of a zombie outbreak, for his teenage daughter Maggie, played with full angst by Abigail Breslin. Once reunited, he discovers she has been bitten and is beginning the slow process of turning into a zombie. He is faced with two options: throw her into quarantine to rot until a potential cure becomes available, or kill her quickly and painlessly. He brings her home for a few days while he makes his decision, but he must decide before it's too late.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed with how this one turned out, even though I still liked it. I knew well what I was on for. As much as I would have fucking killed to see an Arnie zombie film where he's going around, dual wielding mini-guns and ripping the tits off any zombie that crosses him, one bullet at a time, with a fucking big fat 100% illegal Cuban cigar in his teeth; I was quite happy to see him go for a more sombre approach. His acting in this was great by his general standard and as I mentioned above, was compelling enough to make me want to see him do more of the same. It's just the film itself that was lacking a three act structure.

This film begins strong and with heaps of potential and just when it's about to get interesting, it ends. It's a beginning and an end, there is no middle to this film. I'm annoyed it was a zombie film too, because of how it's handled with Maggie getting more ill as time goes on, becoming alienated from her friends, siblings and her stepmother. To me, this could have been any kind of illness; to make it a zombie virus just made it seem like a gimmick to get people interested. Had I seen it advertised as Arnie in a family drama about his terminally ill daughter, I would have still been just as interested to give it a look. Yeah I know they're trying to maybe take the zombie genre in a different direction but it wasn't really necessary for this one. 

For it's subject matter, it's a very dull film, focusing heavily on the coming of age aspects of Maggie's life. It seemed a bit unusual to me that for someone who just found out their daughter is about to turn into a fucking flesh eating monster, he seems to just carry on doing normal shit and not spending much time with her. It's almost entirely set on location at their farm house; several times I had hoped he'd maybe try drive her out of town or maybe get into a few more situations that weren't sitting down, chopping logs and arguing with his wife and local police about what he's going to do. The film's strongest aspects are in the acting and some of the cinematography; I say some because there's excellent looking shots and camerawork, but then there is far too many shaky close-ups that feel out of place and simply don't work.

Arnie is definitely convincing in this as a father who knows tragedy is coming, there's no heroism from  him in this, he's just a regular chap. Abigail Breslin was good too, she didn't necessarily do anything groundbreaking or out of character, but she rotted pretty well... Many have compared this to the exceptional video game, The Last of Us. It's not similar at all despite the fact it's an aging man protecting a teenage girl, but under massively different circumstances. He would look good as playing the Joel character though, but not as good as Hugh Jackman.

Arnie is probably at his 2nd best in this film, in terms of genuinely trying to act; he's actually very convincing in Escape Plan of all flicks. He speaks German while pretending to be going insane and I was fully sold on it! Especially considering in the scene previous he was his typical one-liner spouting self. A zombie drama with Arnie in Austria speaking his native tongue... now THERE'S a film I want to see.

Overall I do think it's worth a look, it's far from anything special but it's not terrible either. It's not quite what it could have been, there was too little happening for it to be completely gripping. Dramatically though, it pisses all over The Walking Dead (the most overrated series of all time) - Within 10 mins of this film I cared about the characters and what might happen with them. 5 seasons of the Walking Dead characters and I couldn't care less what happens to the mopey cunts. I'll probably tear the show apart in an article soon... it seems necessary. I digress.

Check out Maggie if you're up for a nice looking slow-paced drama with pretty much no horror (excluding a scene of scavenging and one scene of infected) and some decent acting. It's a strong debut feature for sure, but here's hoping that Hobson can learn from the problems this has and make an exceptional sophomore effort! Maybe more independent stuff from Arnie too, who knows. 

3 brains out of 5 heads.