The Girl with all the Gifts - Okay

Starring: Sennia Nanua, Gemme Arterton, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine 
Director: Colm McCarthy 
Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes 
Drama | Horror | Thriller | Novel Based | 2016

For some reason I thought this movie was going to be like Stranger Things... well the whole thing about a young girl living in a science lab because she has telepathic powers and what not. But boy was I wrong. This is a zombie movie. And quite honestly, I've seen better. Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close) is conducting experiments on children that have qualities of the disease that has taken over the world because she thinks it will lead to a vaccine. These children though behave like normal humans, so they have thoughts other than brains, brains, brains! When the "school" is compromised, the doctor, some soldiers, the teacher (Gemma Arterton), and the main test subject (Sennia Nanua) go out in a world full of zombies to try and survive. 

Glenn Close played the perfect diabolical "savior" to where she became the enemy in the film, like most of these dystopic films regarding disease and zombiness are... cough cough The Maze Runner series. I didn't even recognized Gemma Arterton as the teacher until I saw her name in the end credits. (Remember her from Byzantium? She's a lot nicer in this movie). And then there's the main character, Melanie, played by Sennia Nanua. I think she does a great job. She's a young girl who wants to be normal, but isn't. She's able to use her resources to save the person she loves most and hopefully change the way the infected live. 

Overall, this movie isn't bad, but it's not great either. I can see how this would have started as a novel, most dystopian tales do. I'm going to have to give this film a rating down the middle of the road, "okay." It was able to keep some of my attention, but after awhile I lost interest. (2.5/5).