Title – Maggie (2015)
Director – Henry Hobson (feature debut)
Cast – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson
Plot – In the midst of a zombie like infection that is sweeping the USA, Wade Vogel (Schwarzenegger) will stop at nothing to protect his infected daughter Maggie (Breslin) from being taken from him.
“There is life with you, not with me”
Review by Eddie on 27/07/2015
A zombie centred film that moves slower than that famous torso zombie last seen at the end of Walking Dead season 1, crawling its way through the local park only to be put out of its misery by Rick “cowboy hat” Grimes, Maggie sees the political Governator and one time action stalwart Mr. Schwarzenegger try his hand in a dramatic tale that never bothers to more than shuffle to its oft signposted climax.
Maggie is an intriguing set up and the Governator actually equites himself well in the roll of unlucky father Wade Vogel, showing an almost unrecognisable inward solace and lack of macho behaviour that marks this turn as easily his best since retiring from the California governor’s position. The problem with Maggie however is in its execution and with first time director Henry Hobson at the helm, a weakish script from John Scott 3 and another so-so turn from once child critical darling Abigail Breslin, Maggie dooms itself with some self-inflicted problems that just can’t be overcome.
Hobson’s direction is often so aimless that the audience will struggle to maintain focus and while there’s a neat visual aesthetic to the whole production, Maggie fails to make much of its confines set largely around the rural property where Maggie has retired to whilst dealing with her zombification and you can’t help but feel Scott 3’s story would’ve worked much better in a short story format not a 90 minute feature length trudge. For Maggie to have succeeded we needed more emotionally engagement and in fact more Arnie, who for long stretches of film time finds himself either chopping wood or just not on screen at all and in a film crying out for more “events” to happen, more grizzled Governator could’ve been this films saving grace.
A very neat idea not realised in the slightest, Maggie is a curious watch for all long serving fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger but for a zombie film that is crying out for more of a pulse, even he can’t save this newest addition to the zombie film canon from being dead on arrival. If only Rick Grimes could’ve waltzed along and put Maggie out of her misery, he could’ve saved us all from this slow boring crawl.
1 SOS to Rick Grimes out of 5
Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys) 
Out of respect for its creators-and this is something I think I’ve written about before-, I am very hesitant to call a film “boring.” When I do encounter a film I can call boring though, it is not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, I found Wender’s “Wings of Desire” to be very boring, yet still found it to be great.
Maggie though…this is the absolute worst of both words.
Boring and Bad.
Yeh man I try to not us boring as well but gee wiz this one was almost sleep inducing!
E
Shame.. I actually wanted to see this
Might still be worth a shot but don’t expect much at all!
E
despite all you said, I kinda actually want to give this a shot, just to see Arnold in a dramatic role- especially since you said he actually does well!
Yeh it is worth seeing for him but literally I’d say that is the only reason, some morbid curiosity to see him act a little differently.
E
yes, that’s a good way of putting it!
I may watch this some lazy night, to catch Arnie playing against his usual heroic type. Young miss Abigail has come across as flat in a few of her movies, although I liked her in Deadly (or Perfect) Sisters. Liked Georgie Henley better in that one though. Oh, Rick Grimes, we need you badly. Some of our favorite actors are playing zombie in too many of their their movies. Or loan us Daryl Dixon with his crossbow.
He really does go against the grain here which is good to see! I think I would of much rather see Daryl do his work with his crossbow here than see Abigail act emo for 90 minutes.
E
I did even bother to watch this one the cretics were negative about it. Nice review.
Cheers dude. I’m surprised the critics didn’t hate this more than they did actually.
E
I’m not gonna lie I actually really enjoyed this movie but it looks like I am one of the few, its just slow.
Good to hear you enjoyed it Ultimate, I just never got into it at the slightest even though I was amped up to see it.
E
I wanted to like this movie but I just could not get into it. Arnold played a different role than most people are used to, which was nice. The pacing of the movie was just so slow and kind of boring. Great review, keep up the good work!
Cheers Young. I was happy to see old Arn do something different but man it would’ve been nice for the movie to be more exciting or even interesting ha.
E
Great review but….Here it comes….I really liked this one. It’s far from great and it won’t stick with you but I was with it to the end. Then again my taste is sometimes all over the map! 😉
Your not alone Keith, I’ve spoken with a few film lovers that really enjoyed this one. I just did not “bite” into it in the slightest.
E
Zombies and Schwarzenegger – this movie reeks of badness!! Haha!! However, I’m really curious to see him star in such a flick, so I might actually watch it! Great review Eddie!
It’s worth seeing Maria in the chance you might actually really dig it! I must admit Arnie was probably the best thing about this one.
E
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