Maggie's Life

Maggie (2015) Review

Cinematography by Lucas Ettlin

Maggie is never was your typical zombie flick, not the one you'd expect to have high intensity of tension, and scare tactics rather it focuses more into humanity of the characters and emotions that surrounds it. You got to give Henry Hobson a credit for his directorial debut for delivering unique idea to the said genre of movie world.

The movie is about a girl named Maggie (Abigail Breslin) who is suffering a disease after being infected by virus which turns people into a inevitable flesh eating zombie during a world wide epidemic apocalypse of the said disease. Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the loving father of Maggie who will do everything to protect her while he is also facing an avoidable situation dealing with his daughter's infection from the virus where he ended up making a choice whether to end his daughter's suffering in more crucial way or let his daughter live in suffering. Its an emotional ride of father and daughter relation,  

The film might be unique to the genre, the story is compelling but it doesn't have the strength to make more convincing amends or to root more for it instead it stay on what it is from the beginning to the end. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin performances are really good in this movie the problem is their character doesn't really have a strong chemistry not to each other but the narrative of the film itself.  Maggie is an emotional heavy film yet it is the weakest of it, character build ups are seemingly good but the drama and the emotion on this movie is not as strong as it was supposed to be.

We all know Arnold Schwarzenegger takes some roles that brings himself out from his comfort zone, roles like Dr. Alex Hasse from Junior (1994) , Howarnd Langston from Jingle all the Way (1996) and Julius Benedict from Twins(1988) and now taking a role of an caring father in Maggie, but unlike the any other roles that he take this might his most human and role ever, without showing more of his muscles and punch people to the face, Arnold take his acting in this movie more emotional weight on it and seriousness and it wasn't that bad at all. Arnold does more facial expression to really show the emotion of his character rather than more in talking, yet it really seems to be obviously he really cares about the situation of his daughter.

Through emotions it really helps to build up chemistry between Arnold Schwarzenegger and  Abigail Breslin, at first i thought chemistry will be factor to the problem of the film but i'm wrong they actually work well together. Abigail herself had a best moments on this film where you felt her suffering and pain but it didn't really help the film to bring up its energy and superiority; because of the film tone and plot i never thought of it as a horror zombie but rather as a pure Drama flick.

All cast in the film felt authentic and they are really did a  good job the problem is movie didn't take it as an advantage to bring more, where i seem to believe that it supposed to have more thing on it that we can hold throughout the movie. The pacing kept the same lane and it didn't go out to the extravagance possibility which we cannot presume to blame it to the filmmaker behind the movie because it just debut film yet. 

However the tone of the movie knows where it belongs and they didn't pressed too much about it, its quite and refreshing yet the slow pacing makes it a bad combination, which slows down the energy of the  movie, it didn't goes Up and Down all stays straight on line. Visually its enthralling, its dark that fits well to the tone of the movie which helps it to make it more interesting but still doesn't really help out the movie's Energy. Not to say the Maggie is boring movie because there is no strength to its energy, the interest factor of it is even enough to keep you up on this film its just that there is some act that the movie really slows down and it never really go up so fast to yet it goes neutral and then slow again.

Overall to be honest Maggie is okay on what it is now, the story is great and unique yet it wasn't delivered on what it was supposed to be, meaning that the good potentional of the narrative was never been included, and the lack of emotional brutality makes the movie bland for some moment.

I will give Maggie a solid 6.5/10

Although i like Maggie for now i cannot recommend it for everyone to see, however i still looking forward on what Henry Hobson can give us in the future. Maggie is now showing in Philippines, Cinemas Nationwide.