Also rented Maximum Ride, the film version of the first book of a teen/YA series by James Patterson. The book was a decent diversion, written like the first draft a movie script for all its depth. The movie is an embarrassing train-wreck of terrible script-writing and even worse special FX. Seriously bad visual FX.
Basic premise is some mad scientists genetically engineered some surly teenagers into half bird people (they have retractable wings and, at least in the book, hollow bones to help them fly). It’s a basic wish-fulfillment type story for teens who want to be extra special or whatever. It worked fairly well in the book.
But the script is just terrible and assumes, inexplicably, that you’ve read this books which, to be fair, I had and it’s the only reason I knew what was going on. The flick just chucks you into the deep end and all you necessarily know is that there’s a bunch of surly teens on the lamb from someone for some reason. Takes an inordinately long time to explain why and how they are mutated and, by that point, nobody cares.
And, wow, the CGI on the bird wings and of the kids flying is embarrassing. I feel ashamed for them (and for watching).
Checked the reviews on IMDB and almost every one was hovering around 0 or 1 star and by fans of the book who were clearly the right age to be pandered to by the book (I was too old, technically). So even folk who think the book is the best book ever or even the first book they’d ever read hate this turkey. Pun intended. Stay away. It’s on iTunes and other platforms presumably.
Score: 59