[WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD]

“Maximum Ride” is about six kids, aged six through 14, who were raised at The School, a hospital used to create children with manipulated DNA. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman and Angel are 98% human and 2% Avian. The kids escape The School with one of their creators Jeb, but after a few months, Jeb disappears and they are left to grow up on their own.

Two years go by, and they have accustomed to their lives. As the group of kids develop their skills, The School’s erasers (humans mutated with wolves) come to kidnap their youngest member, Angel, because she developed a unique mind reading skill.

Max and Fang decide to travel to Death Valley to find Angel and bring her back. On the way, Max gets hurt, and at home, Gazzy(Gasman),  Nudge and Iggy are attacked and are forced to blow up the house with one of Gazzy’s bombs. The kids leave their house and meet up with Fang and Max in Death Valley.     Once they arrive at Death Valley, the group is attacked by a pack of erasers, including Ari, Jeb's son, and taken to The School. There, they are locked up with Angel. As it turns out, Jeb disappeared on purpose and designed  an experiment to see how well they could evolutionize and live on their own. Max, furious, starts a fight with Ari and ends up killing him.

The book ends with the group blowing up the school and escaping, but afterward, Max hears a man's voice in her head.

This movie was overall poor quality and had a disappointing actor choice. There was unnecessary slow motion, and the movie does not go with the book at all. They also manipulated multiple important situations that could have given it at least a decent plot.

While I was overall disappointed with the whole thing, I did really enjoy the books by James Patterson. The eight novels Patterson wrote were more descriptive and contained a stable plot that left you excited to read the next one. I would recommend people read this series and avoid this movie completely, so it will not ruin the books for you.

The overall rating for this movie was 3.9/10 stars on IMDb. All of the reviews I have read are negative, and I would give this movie one out of five Cardinal heads.