Maximum Ride
/They experimented on us like lab rats, and now we have to run, hide and fight every day just to stay alive.
~ Fang
quick fox: F
winding dragon
I’ve had a lot of conversations about what people think is the worst movie adaptation of a book. No matter who you ask, The Hobbit trilogy (2012-14) is sure to illicit some type of reaction. The mere mention of Eragon (2006) is enough to make most people cringe. And other young adult novels have often disappointed in Hollywood form, like The City of Ember (2008), Inkheart (2008), Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (2010), and Ender’s Game (2013).
But without question, all of them pale in comparison to the abomination that is Maximum Ride.
Based on James Patterson’s (also the misguided executive producer for this film) bestselling series, Maximum Ride (2016) is the most anticlimactic, uneventful action movie in the history of science fiction. The premise seems like it’d be impossible to get wrong—six winged humans escape a sinister laboratory and must use their powers to save themselves and the world. Yet, if not for a few brief scenes, you wouldn’t even know that they had supernatural abilities. The six fugitives (Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel) spend most of their time walking even though they can fly everywhere; Iggy and Nudge are supposed to have secret powers that are never revealed; and even though the film talks about Angel’s telepathy, it is never used.
Honestly, I have never seen a film try so hard to avoid living up to its own title. “Maximum Ride” sounds like it should be one of the greatest thrill rides of your life, but instead it’s like getting on a roller coaster that only moves at one speed down a straight line. (Or a better analogy: imagine if the Harry Potter series had Quidditch, but instead of broomsticks, the players just ran on the ground like an ordinary soccer team.) Like the audience, the characters spend the entire movie waiting around for something to happen. First, they wait in their safe house, then they wait in the woods, then they wait in a town, then they wait in a cabin, then they wait in the laboratory after they get captured, and then…the movie ends.
The only explanation (and I’m desperate for some justification) I have for such a monotonous film is that it was attempting to be a deviant in its genre, exchanging exciting action sequences for engaging characters and a witty screenplay. The problem? This film has neither. The combination of phoned-in acting and CW-worthy dialogue produces a painful experience for everyone involved.
Maximum Ride is either an endurance test for movie buffs or an exercise in machoism. Fans of the book series will openly weep at the degradation that James Patterson willingly submits himself to, and all will wonder how they can get a refund for their wasted ninety minutes.