Verdict: ★★★ 1/2

About twenty years ago, I read a small blurb which described Schwarzenegger having gotten a hold of a script that dealt with a lonely man (he wanted to play the lead) who was the last human on earth after everyone else became vampires. It was sort of a take on I Am Legend, and the script followed the man as he continued to lock himself up in his house each night as the vampires screamed and taunted him from outside. Then every day he’d re-build what they’d torn up, do his chores and whatever, then lock up as dusk fell again. Definitely a character study, the movie would have required amazing emotional depth to carry it through.

The movie never was realized, but I was immediately reminded of the script he’d read when I watched Maggie. I remember thinking back then that there was no way Schwarzenegger had the acting chops to pull off a movie of that magnitude without some sort of fast paced action sequences. I may have been right, I don’t think he did at that time. But now, 20 years later, he indeed may!

In the monster movie genre, there are action packed zombie flicks… there are goofy, funny zombie flicks… there are character study zombie flicks… then there’s Maggie. Schwarzenegger throws us a curveball with this change of pace from his usual blast furnace of heart-stopping action and gunfire, and slows us down to a nice, passive walk on the farm as Wade Vogel, a small town Midwestern man who speaks with an Austrian accent that no one seems to question.

Wade’s daughter goes missing just as the zombie apocalypse happens and he finds her in a nearby city with a bite on her arm. Bringing her home instead of taking her to “Quarantine”, he breaks all the rules and promises to um… take care of it when she does finally turn. Apparently turning into a zombie takes weeks because this ordeal Wade and his daughter go through is a gradual, cruel meander toward certain death with plenty of time to be afraid and think about your humanity.

Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is your typical teenaged girl, with boys and a diary and cute colors on her nails. As she turns, and her skin mottles, and her eyes milk over, and she starts to show traits of zombie cannibalism, her friends try to comfort her and invite her to parties and all that. But the overshadowing horror of unspeakable things lurks ever in the shadows of this world and she finds that no matter what she does or how she acts, nothing is the same as it once was. She grows up entirely too fast in those few weeks for a girl her age.

Her daddy, Wade, meanwhile has to keep that brave face which is getting harder and harder to do as other zombies (neighbors they once knew) continue to show up and Wade has to deal.

Maggie is more than a zombie movie… it’s a study in humanity and love. Beautifully done, yet a little slow paced, it keeps you wondering how things will play out and if Wade will actually “take care of it” when the inevitable happens. One thing is clear, however… Ahnold has the chops to pull this off and I look forward to more emotionally driven roles from him in the future!