Adapted from a young adult novel of the same name, and first part of a trilogy of books, The Darkest Minds released without much hype, as most Young Adult (YA) book-turned-movies of recent past did. The Darkest Minds is not half bad and clearly better than others (case in point: The Divergent will be forgotten soon).

In the story, the world is suffering from a virus that is killing children, and those survive are left with weird side effects that gives them super powers. These children are taken away from their families and put into a government institution that seeks to cure them. They are classified by colours; green (those who have heightened intelligence), yellow (electricity control), blue (moving object by their thought), orange (mind readers) and red (who can control fire – the last two classes are considered dangerous. The reds are put aside for military work but the orange are just killed off.

Our Heroine Ruby (Amandla Stenberg) is an orange, who hides between the greens for six years, till she escapes with the help of Dr. Connor (Mandy Moore).

Dr. Connor belongs to a rebellion that is trying to gather super powered children to stand against the corrupt government and its laws. But soon Ruby runs away again and makes friends with three children Liam (Harris Dickinson) – a blue, Chubs (Skylan Brooks) – a green, and Zu (Miya Cech) – a yellow.

The plot is very much like a typical YA movie, but inoffensively so. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the director of Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3 in her first live action movie, shoots the movie fast and to the point. Sadly The Darkest Minds tanked at the box-office (with a budget of 34 million, which has so far made 12.9 million), so a sequel will not be seeing light of day any day soon.•