STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A contagious virus has spread across America that is causing the infected to slowly mutate in to cannibalistic zombies. Wade Vogel's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) would be one such person, a young girl grimly aware of her terrible predicament. As the inevitable closes in, father and daughter bond in a final, all encompassing way, before they're drawn towards a terrifying final outcome.

After his much hyped comeback a few years ago, Schwarzenegger has achieved what can only at best be called the most hit and miss results with his new batch of explosive, '80s flavoured action films. There was still something resembling an audience, but most people's tastes have cleaned up quite a bit. And so, out of nowhere, it seems, he delivers this latest offering, which on paper comes off just like one of his regular shoot 'em up type films, with him versus zombies. But instead, he's taken such a plot line and given it a more mature angle, as a more tender and heartfelt examination of the final days of a father and daughter, that shows a departure from his usual type of fare.

As more emotionally driven as the plot is, it doesn't really have the best sense of structure or direction, and instead seems to be driven more on a moody, lingering sense of atmosphere and tension, with the lighting drained out and brightened up in subsequent shots to affect the mood. Debut feature length director Henry Hobson has shown a certain knack and sense of style behind the camera, but he needs to go back to school a little on his structural narrative abilities, and crafting a film that has somewhere to go in spite of it's heart.

So, we have it, then, Arnie's most bizarre film, ever, a totally unexpected and different effort from him that's appeared out the blue. In spite of it's strangeness, it's better than anything he's done lately, and shows a more mature and emotional side developing after so many years. ***

I'm a huge fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has afforded me more pure entertainment and enjoyment over the years than any other star on the planet, so I'm always eager to jump on anything new he has coming out. Sadly, MAGGIE is one of the worst films I've seen him in, and that's purely because of the direction and script (or lack thereof) rather than Arnie himself; he's typically good and gives a solid performance in this one.

Sadly, the rest is trite, an arthouse drama masquerading as a zombie movie. A grieving father struggles to care for his teenage daughter who is rapidly succumbing to a zombie plague sweeping the nation. There's a lot of dialogue about nothing and small-scale scenes of characters arguing, weeping, and wandering around as aimlessly as the screenplay. Arnie's good, but the rest? A real chore to sit through.

The world is devastated by the "Necroambulist" zombie virus. Maggie (Abigail Breslin) has been infected by a bite. Her father Wade Vogel (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sneaks her out of the hospital quarantine. Back home, he leaves his other kids to relatives. His wife Caroline (Joely Richardson) is concerned and disagrees with him. Maggie feels herself slowly turning.

This movie is reserved. Schwarzenegger's acting is reserved. The acting is all solid. The reserved tone does keep the tension at a lower level. There is a limitation to the intensity from the writing. It needs to amp up the danger level. The cops should be hunting for the infected. The friends should be scared and there should be more fear of discovery. There is a little bit of good body horror. It's an interesting different take on the zombie genre but not intense.