Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

The Girl with All the Gifts
2016
**½
Director: Colm McCarthy
Cast: Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, Sennia Nanua, Anamaria Marinca, Fisayo Akinade, Anthony Welsh, Dominique Tipper

In a dystopian future, a parasitic fungus has turned most of the population into cannibalistic hungries. A small group of people, which includes a young girl who could provide the cure to the infection, manage to escape and head towards London. Mike Carey's science fiction story, which he scripted from his own novel, offers a slight variation on the old zombie movie formula, at least in the beginning and in the end. The middle part is very familiar creeping-silently-among-zombies stuff. I'm slightly bothered by the characterisation of the hungries, who sometimes eat their victims, and other times only bite and infect them. Visually, this is television standard.