From Lionsgate Entertainment comes a very different type of zombie movie: Maggie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin. The film, directed by Henry Hobson and written by John Scott, is probably the most realistic zombie movie I’ve ever watched. I am a huge zombie movie fan and have been watching them since I was eighteen; most of them involve huge action scenes and countless hordes of zombies attempting to eat anything that breathes. Maggie goes in the opposite direction, taking a much more heartfelt and human take than I have ever seen. In my opinion, this movie is what an actual zombie infection would be like in a rural area of America. There would be no huge cities lined with dead scrambling about; there would be families broken over what to do about their infected loved ones.
The story is fairly simple: Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has been on a search for his daughter, Maggie (Abigail Breslin), who ran away in the midst of a zombie outbreak. He finds her in a hospital in Kansas City, but it’s too late; she has already been bitten. In this movie, the infection takes a month to turn those who are infected into zombies, so an organization called the CDC allows people to take their infected loved ones home. They are also given a pamphlet about the virus to read while they spend time with each other. Wade takes Maggie home to spend the last few weeks with her, and during this time, he has to watch her as she slowly turns into a zombie. This movie doesn’t have the huge action set-pieces that you’re used to in a zombie movie; instead, it has the huge heart wrenching moments about a family trying to stay together while their daughter slowly succumbs to the virus. The movie, while slow at some points, kept me at the edge of my seat. As a result, I enjoyed this movie from the opening credits all the way to end.
I’ve been watching Arnold Schwarzenegger movies since I was eight years old, and for the most part they were huge action spectacles that didn’t really involve the in-depth performance. While watching Arnold’s recent performances, I’ve noticed he’s become a much more proficient actor. I noticed it in Escape Plan, and then truly saw it in this movie. Arnold completely pulls off the father of a girl who is slowly turning into a zombie; you can see it in his eyes and his mannerisms that he’s lost and doesn’t know what to do other than protect Maggie. Abigail Breslin takes the teenage angst role to a whole new level. Knowing that you were going to die in eight weeks, that’s terrible itself — Knowing that you may kill or turn your loved ones after you die has to be even more horrifying. Breslin takes each scene and portrays the worried teenager well. You feel for Maggie, who knows that in a few short weeks, Arnold will have to either take her to quarantine or end her suffering himself. Both leading players really gave outstanding performances and pulled you into the world; they even made my mom cry.
The scenes flow together quite well. The mood and tone of the movie are carried into the set pieces and the overall gloom of the film. I found that the scenes with little to no dialogue were the most impactful. A few of the wordless scenes had me the most tense while watching the film. The story is told well, and you can decide what is happening to this family in the film quite easily. The only thing that leaves you wondering, like all other zombie movies, is where the disease come from, and will there be a cure. The origin of the zombie outbreak is alluded to, but there was never any concrete answer to that question.
There are bonus features on this disc, but they really aren’t anything to write home about. You get the standard “Director’s Commentary,” the “Making of Maggie,” “Interviews with Cast and Crew,” the “Maggie Trailer,” and a “Deleted Scene.” We all know what a commentary is; it’s when someone talks over the movie and explains what they were thinking when they made that scene and so on. To be honest, the only commentary I enjoy is the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary. The interviews were interesting, I especially liked the Arnold Schwarzenegger one; I really had never watched an interview with him and I enjoyed seeing the man behind The Terminator speaking about his career. The “Deleted Scene,” when watched, makes it fairly obvious as to why it was deleted: It was pretty boring and already pushed the card that the family was stressed out.
When I first heard about this movie, I wanted to see it. I love zombies, and I figured Arnold would be smashing zombie skulls. I was wrong, and the movie was completely different from what I had expected. That does not mean that I didn’t like it at all. Like I said earlier, this was the most realistic zombie film I’d ever seen. Maggie is grounded more in reality than any other zombie movie, and it does pull the heartstrings. If you’re looking for a shoot-them-up violent as all hell zombie movie, this isn’t the one for you. However, if you’re looking for an emotional character driven zombie movie, then definitely pick up Maggie.
What my Dad thought.
My father is seventy-two years old and has no problems saying what he feels about movies and television shows we watch. He kept quiet during this one, because he wanted me to have an unbiased opinion as I wrote my review. The one thing he did say was quite humorous:
“Boring as sh*t, huh?”
A Blu-ray copy of Maggie was provided by Lionsgate Entertainment for this review. All screenshots in the review are the property of Lionsgate Entertainment.