young adult
Hope Springs Eternal deals with depressing subject matter – but does so with a sweetness that’s touching and entertaining.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a testament to how far young adult films have come, resisting stereotypes and cliches despite seeming to fall into a gimmicky premise.
The Darkest Minds brings some potentially daring concepts, but builds them to nothing, with not even its action scenes being a saving grace.
Compared to other teen classics that have covered the same ground before, The Kissing Booth comes across as amateurish – and a tiny bit problematic.
You can’t fault EVERY DAY for a lack of ambition – however, the film feels watered down by a breezy running time that doesn’t allow for a deeper exploration of the body swap conceit.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure wraps up the series nicely, and despite any plotholes, it doesn’t completely fall apart. With this genre producing so many duds in recent years, there are worse concepts to spend your time enduring.
The film adaptations only scratched the surface of JK Rowling’s world- the Harry Potter franchise needs a Game of Thrones style TV reboot.
Despite a winning performance from Lola Kirke, it looks like Fallen’s destiny is to be assigned to the scrapheap of YA movie history.
Death Note has plenty of faults, but watched with the brain firmly in the “off” position, it becomes easy to enjoy – especially as it manages to feel more cartoonish than the anime it’s based on.
In this very personal feature, Zachary Kennedy explains how the Divergent series helped him understand his sexual identity: instead of belonging to one “faction”, he belongs to more.
Before I Fall is a young adult adaptation that manages to stand apart from the rest, presenting a lavishly told thriller about high schoolers.
Interpreted from the widely popular young adult fantasy novel by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is home to the latest magical world from the mind of Tim Burton. Alas, there is no appearance from Johnny Depp or Helena Boham Carter, yet there is no doubt that the somewhat creepy, dire visuals on-screen belong to a Tim Burton film. Aside from the visuals and construction of characters, though, there isn’t much more to this book adaptation.
Whether it’s aimed at big kids or little kids, one of the most common themes in films from the last few decades has been the concept of ‘coming-of-age’. What this actually means can vary. For instance, ‘coming-of-age’ films may be ‘teen dramas’ or stories about childhood, sexuality, gender, or (auto-) biography.
Catherine Hardwicke’s name may now be synonymous with a certain teen vampire movie, but her career has spanned a diverse and accomplished selection of films encompassing skateboarding SoCal teens, adolescent angst, fantasy action and moving comedy drama. Hardwicke is now also well-known for her work in raising the profile of both female filmmakers and highlighting the industry bias against them, an issue she has experienced first hand throughout her career and one on which she is not afraid to speak out. Whatever project she undertakes, her work is full of energy, vibrancy, and authenticity.
Although initially derided as nothing more than a rip-off of similar dystopian novels (and their subsequent film adaptations) The Running Man and Battle Royale, author Suzanne Collins saw her book series become increasingly popular due to how it tied in with the contemporary societal fear of graphic violence co-existing with inane entertainment. Collins devised the idea for her original 2008 novel whilst at home channel-surfing, with the image of a bleak reality showcased by war reports on news channels making an uneasy bedfellow with the artificial reality of TV talent competitions. A dystopian fantasy that now closely resembles our reality As the adaptation of the final chapters in Collins’ trilogy closer Mockingjay Part 2 makes its way to the big screen, it is less than a week after the world was left horrified by images of terrorism in Paris.