Maggie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Maggie Blu-ray Movie Review

Night of the Living Ahnold.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 2, 2015

Take that, Australia.

There has been a veritable slew of films that have detailed various post-Apocalyptic doin’s Down Under, films as disparate as On the Beach, Mad Max, Tank Girl, The Rover and These Final Hours. But no one does the Apocalypse like the good old U.S.A. (that doesn’t sound quite right, but no matter), and so we have a zombie-esque plague decimating the American heartland in—uh-oh, wait just a minute. Are those accents one can discern in the crew interviews on some of the supplements adorning this new Blu-ray release of Maggie? Well, at least director Henry Hobson is English, though some of the other members of the production team do seem to be sporting an Aussie idiolect. Despite the internationalism of both the cast and the crew of Maggie, the film does have a certain feeling for the American heartland, one that is in fact kind of curiously similar to the expansive vistas seen in These Final Hours. Trafficking more in quasi-zombie tropes than in threats of nuclear annihilation, Maggie is in essence a quiet character study of a family under duress when the titular Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is bitten by a victim of a zombie virus and has only a few days until she, too, becomes one of the shambling undead. Maggie’s father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fairly unusual role for the actor) brings the girl home to live out whatever time she has left, and the film details the slow motion heartbreak that unfolds as Wade, his wife (and Maggie’s stepmom) Caroline (Joely Richardson) and Maggie attempt to navigate a passage which by necessity will have a tragic denouement.

Some needlessly fussy intercutting opens the film, but at least quickly introduces both Wade and Maggie. Though it’s not initially clear, Maggie has run away after having been bitten by a zombie, in order to protect her family which includes her two young step siblings. Wade has been searching for her and finally tracks her down at a hospital where authorities have taken her for violating a government imposed curfew. That sets up the bulk of the film, where Wade brings Maggie back to the family farm and he and Carolyn await the inevitable. They at least have the good sense to ship the young kids off to stay with an Aunt.

Maggie spends much of the rest of its running time playing out in a series of fairly tamped down vignettes where, for example, Carolyn can’t bring herself to look at the wound on Maggie’s arm which will ultimately lead to the girl’s demise. Maggie is therefore almost an anti-zombie film in one sense, for it only fitfully traffics in standard zombie tropes. That choice probably only makes the few sequences that do feature typical attacking undead folks all the more shocking and palpable. In fact when the first actual zombie skirmish takes place, it’s like a bolt out of the blue (and/or gray, given this film’s palette and overcast demeanor).

One of the most shocking scenes doesn’t actually involve zombieism per se, though the subtext of Maggie’s “evolution” underlies its discomfiting content. An injury on a swing set reveals Maggie’s blood is turning to black goop, and the resulting “solution” Maggie comes up with to “fix” her wound provides one of Maggie’s most unsettling moments. These more traditional horror eruptions are the exception rather than the rule, however, and Maggie treads a somewhat more subdued course, illuminating the inescapable sadness of Wade (and Carolyn) while also exposing Maggie’s unusual combination of steeliness and vulnerability.

Maggie is probably just the sort of odd, proto-indie film Arnold Schwarzenegger should be doing more of at this stage in his career, rather than warmed over (if enjoyable) action fare like The Last Stand and Escape Plan (not to mention The Expendables 2, The Expendables 3 and—dare I say it—even Terminator Genisys). Schwarzenegger is appealingly low key and effective here, offering a scraggly, disheveled rancher who’s watching his world decay around him (one of the film’s more strangely beautiful sequences involves Wade burning his fields, since it’s thought the virus might be spread through crops). Richardson is wonderful in a somewhat underwritten role, but the film probably belongs hook, line and sinker to Breslin, who makes Maggie a resilient soul who has no illusions about her fate, but who is still struggling with the emotions that the situation has foisted off on her.

Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Maggie is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is a very interesting looking film a lot of the time, achieved through typical means like color grading (including color stripping), but also (as Hobson speaks about briefly in his commentary) the addition of digital grain. The entire film often has a kind of smoky and hazy ambience, and with the overlay of a somewhat mottled looking grain field, detail can be mitigated, especially in dark and aggressively graded sequences. On the other hand, Hobson and DP Lukas Ettlin are just as likely to suddenly offer a relatively naturalistic looking palette in good lighting conditions, and suddenly detail and precision are excellent (see screenshots 1 and 14). Occasionally effects can get slightly out of hand, giving the appearance of some (brief) sequences an almost surreal quality (see screenshot 11). Another kind of effect, namely the techniques utilized to "zombify" characters, is extremely effective, giving the victims the look of having succumbed to something like the Bubonic plague. While I personally wouldn't term the grain overly "organic" looking in this presentation, there are no actual issues with compression anomalies.

Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Maggie features a subtle but quite effective lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that traffics in the steady buzz of cicadas and other sonic signs of the New Orleans locations (Hobson mentions how he didn't want any bird or wildlife sounds in the mix, as a kind of subliminal reference to the destruction rampant in the world). David Wingo contributes a moody, spare score that almost sounds ambient at times, but which spreads through the surrounds very effectively. Dialogue is cleanly and clearly rendered and well prioritized in this problem free track.

Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Director's Commentary. First time director Hobson might want to work on his commentary chops a bit, for he has a tendency to let long stretches go by without saying anything (though in his defense, he actually shuts up intentionally at one point so that the music can be heard—imagine!). Along the way he gets into some interesting details, like an absurdly small art budget and the last minute arrival of a cinematographer.


• Making Maggie (1080p; 18:14) is a standard issue EPK, but does feature some above average interview segments.


• Interviews with Cast and Crew:

  Henry Hobson - Director (1080p; 8:16)

  John Scott 3 - Writer (1080p; 6:34)

  Arnold Schwarzenegger - "Wade"/Producer (1080p; 19:48)

  Abigail Breslin - "Maggie" (1080p; 7:19)

  Joely Richardson - "Carolyn" (1080p; 8:10)

• Deleted Scene (1080p; 2:15) offers a brief marital moment between Wade and Carolyn.


• Maggie Trailer (1080p; 2:09)

Maggie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Writer John Scott 3 and director Henry Hobson are definitely talents to keep an eye on, and if Maggie doesn't completely succeed, it's still a nicely unique take on by now far too familiar zombie fare. Schwarzenegger does extremely well in a quiet, undemonstrative role where the actor suggests as much through his doleful eyes as in any of his spare dialogue. Breslin is similarly impressive detailing Maggie's slow descent into a more feral state. Technical merits are generally strong and Maggie comes Recommended.