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Maggie (2015), PG-13, ★★1/2

Schwarzenegger taking care of his zombie daughter. 
The "zombie apocalypse" exists as far as I researched on the Net but I do not want to know how it will happen because there will be a pandemic and/or epidemic that could ruin civilization and would lead to extinction. Yikes! This zombie trend in films and television is widely popular as even though the whole genre is silly, it is suspenseful simultaneously. The Walking Dead and World War Z are the most recent successful films that I enjoyed. Even though it is a departure for Arnold Schwarzenegger's canon of action films, it is an interesting concept with not enough depth to get my full attention because of its plain dialogue and weird cinematography.

Most of the population on Earth has been infected by the virus called: the Necroambulist virus that turn people into zombies. Farmers have burnt their crops to prevent contamination. Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a father searching for her daughter, Maggie (Abigail Breslin). Maggie is placed in an area at a hospital with the infected people. She has a bite wound on her arm and it is gradually infecting her and spreading throughout her body. Wade takes Maggie home to settle her affairs until she is in a phase of where she needs to be quarantined.

Wade brings Maggie to his wife, Caroline (Joely Richardson) which is her stepmother. Her siblings are taken to their aunt until Maggie's issue is dealt with. One day, Maggie cuts her finger and sees black fluid oozing from her finger and realizes that she cuts off her finger and is slowly transforming her. Wade becomes stressed on to how to resolve with Maggie so this will be a hard decision as to what to do with her.

Is this goodbye?
I liked the first half of the movie a whole lot until the film gets into the movie goes into conventional and uninteresting territory that drags the film down. The section that bothered me was when Maggie is with her friends and is basically a section of self-indulgence where basically she bids her friends goodbye during her final days of "survival" and also there is that predictable scene where Maggie and a boy who is also infected have to connect. I was rolling my eyes at that because it is fluff in my opinion. Also, the pacing is slow and inconsistent with they do not explore the atmosphere within the zombie apocalypse. It is attached to the personal story of Maggie.

Arnold Schwarzenegger gives an interesting and different performance in a world we expect to see a lot more action in a world full of genres. We see a little bit of that but with a more psychological spin and more personal angle as to what he will face with Maggie's demise. Abigail Breslin gives a strong performance as we witness her slowly transforming and being worried that she will not survive. But, also, we sense on what the dynamic between father and daughter will bring into when it is time for Breslin's character to go.

Again, this is an interesting film but the movie is slow and does not go anywhere regarding exposition of the storyline and also the setting of how the Earth is. It is basically a personal tale of survival. But, it needed another crack at the computer as to how the characters are fully developed, a more dimensional storyline and maybe not being too stylistic due to the film being dark and looking like they filtered with so many camera lenses to make it look like the first movie on Instagram. Even though there is intellectualism in the film, this movie needed a jolt of energy. It is a close call, but I'm not recommending the movie.

**1/2

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