[Review] The Girl with All the Gifts

Zombies. The buggers are here to stay. Personally, I'm a little burnt out on the genre, but The Girl with All the Gifts is a decent brain-chewing specimen with just enough tweaks to keep things interesting.

That girl with all the gifts is Melanie (Sennia Nanua), seemingly a half-zombie with partial immunity to the fungal outbreak infecting the world here. She can still think and act like a sweet and smart little human, but she craves flesh, occasionally launching into Hungry Hungry Hippo-like munchathons. When the military base where she's being studied gets overrun by a horde of "hungries" (that's what they call the zombies), Melanie escapes with her compassionate teacher (Gemma Arterton), a tough-as-nails Doctor (Glenn Close, great), and a couple of army grunts.

It's an intriguing take on a tale of survival--walking alongside the deadly enemy and the potential key to a cure for the future. Sennia Nanua's spirited performance really makes us root for her character's well-being. The film brings the usual close calls while flinging the sloppy amounts of blood and guts that you'd expect. It doesn't skimp on skin-crawling imagery either, like the close-up of a zombie baby with a rat dwelling in its stomach (yikes). Aside from the gross stuff, it's set in a thick dystopian atmosphere--the picture steeped with a sepia haze and filled with evocative shots of vines taking over skyscrapers. Unfortunately, the story loses some of its *ahem* bite during the midsection. There's a little too much uneventful wandering around, and it trudges to a fitting yet underwhelming conclusion.

Still, it's not the worst way to spend an hour and 50 minutes--from a distance, of course.

( 7/10 )

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