The Darkest Minds is an unimaginative movie with a path that was clear from the moment it was announced — a sequel.

A young-adult post-apocalyptic movie based on a series of novels by Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds main narrative is the outbreak of a disease called idiopathic adolescent acute neurodegeneration (IAAN) and how it kills more than 90 percent of the world’s children.

Those who survive, blessed with a variety of abilities, freak the government out.

So they live their lives in internment camps, segregated by color depending on how mild or strong their powers are: green, blue, orange and red.

How does the government deal with those in orange and the red categories? It kills them.

There will be a day when the tropes of movies like this — The Hunger Games, X-Men, Divergent — will run their course. Or better yet, their audiences will get tired of them, although today is not that day.

The Darkest Minds involves Ruby Daly (Amandla Stenberg), who has the power to manipulate minds, earning her the orange designation.

She evades merciless murder in the internment camp and is set free by Cate (Mandy Moore), who spearheads the Children’s League organization.

Fearful, she flees. Once she’s out, she runs into other gifted kids: love-interest with the power of telekinesis Liam (Harris Dickinson), mute controller of lightning Zu (Miya Cech), overly intelligent Chubs (Skylan Brooks).

They are on the lookout for a sanctuary for their kind called EDO, while at the same time being chased by government “tracers” — bounty hunters who will stop at nothing to capture or kill them. Clancy Gray (Patrick Gibson), the president’s son, is one of the gifted kids.

As depictions of a post-apocalyptic society go, The Darkest Minds does a good job.

Sticking together: Chubs (from left), Zu, Ruby and Liam make up the remaining survivors.

The government is presented as ruthlessly draconian; the kids are innocent and just want to go home. The scenes, directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, are also handled with enough care; playing around at a mall is interrupted by the presence of a threat.

The romance between Ruby and Liam is definitely a box to tick in these movies — safe, harmless and occasionally dramatic. But the dialogue between them — and the dialogue throughout the film actually —is littered with clichés that don’t present enough surprise to kill the boredom. Though wonderfully acted, boredom was palpable in the theater.

There is a rather evocative scene in which law enforcer’s gun down kids attempting to break out.

Forget everything you have seen in other movies in this genre — the bleakness of it is pretty stark, but what’s hardly explained is the reasoning behind these actions. Handling it with kid gloves would do just fine, right? Unfortunately, the camera remains fixated on Ruby and her adventures while the world around her burns, but you cannot see the fire.

The movies intention is also obvious — you’ll only see the fire in the sequels.

The Darkest Minds feels like a setup, as these movies go. The problem within is just one — reliance on the setup.

Irreverent of their individual qualities, The Hunger Games does not have this problem and neither does X-Men, placing them in the correct place in cinemas history. Which begs the question: does looking for particularity in these kinds of movies make any difference? Thanks to The Darkest Minds, it’s hard to tell.

— Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox

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The Darkest Minds

(20th Century Fox; 105 minutes)
Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Harris Dickinson, Mandy Moore, Patrick Gibson, Skylan Brooks, Miya Cech.