Maggie

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson

Directed by Henry Hobson

Reviewed by Dave Felts

Rating: (2.5/5)

In this version of a post-apocalyptic zombie world, a virus called the necroambulist virus, has broken out in a deadly pandemic causes people to slowly necrotize while at the same time rendering them violent and hungry. The incubation period is typically a few weeks, so once a person is infected, they have plenty of time to contemplate their impending death, as do those around them. 

Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is a teenager who has been infected. After a certain point, an infected person is rounded up and put into quarantine. Naturally, her parents -- father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and step-mother Caroline (Joely Richardson) want to delay this as long as possible. Its easy to commiserate with loving parents who want to spend as much time with their terminally ill child as they can. But maybe loving parents aren't best ones to decide when she's too dangerous to keep free. 

At the beginning of the movie, Maggie is still in the very early stages of infection. She's allowed to return home with her father, who is warned that he must take her to quarantine once her symptoms become worse. What we have is a film that is really about a teenager with a terminal illness and how she and her family face her illness and deal with the time she has left. 

I thought Schwarzenegger did an adequate job portraying a grieving father, one who even faced with the undeniable truth of the situation still doesn't want to accept it. It's very easy to understand his motivations, even after it becomes apparent that Maggie might be becoming dangerous. It's still hard for me to get past his voice. How did a guy with that accent end up being a down-trodden farmer named Wade living in the Midwest?

Breslin (who is an Oscar-nominee) did a great  job portraying a teenager who, much too soon, has to come to grips with her mortality. We see how slowly coming to realize that her future will never arrive and her dreams will never come true. All pretty heartbreaking stuff. 

There's very little in the way of actual horror, which might disappoint some zombie fans looking for a Walking Dead or George Romero style survivor tale. It's a slow paced film that actually took me a few tries to get through. There's just not that much going on. If you're not a parent or someone who's had a loved one experience a terminal illness , you'll probably be bored.