This zombie yarn doesn’t quite sate
Sweet-faced, 10-year-old Melanie, played by appealing newcomer Sennia Nanua, is ostensibly the titular figure in the British dystopian horror yarn “The Girl With All the Gifts,” who hardly seems the type to warrant imprisonment, alongside other similarly restrained kids, when soldiers enter with automatic weapons trained at her face.
To her teacher, Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton), she’s a figure to nurture, even shed a tear over. But to Sgt. Parks (Paddy Considine), Melanie is evil personified.
With “Girl” we are once more in apocalyptic zombieland, with Mike Carey adapting his well-received novel about child flesh-eaters and the grown-ups who fear/love/study them, and director Colm McCarthy serving it up with palatable tension, if not exactly a brimming visual stylishness or character-driven urgency.
When the base is breached, Melanie gets out, becoming part of a team along with a few soldiers, Justineau and Dr. Caldwell (a stern-faced Glenn Close). As they venture into abandoned cities teeming with “hungries” (zombies) looking for a protected human enclave, “Girl” slips into standard-issue explore/defend mode.
One is left feeling that “The Girl With All the Gifts” is no better or worse than a couple of solid episodes of a sci-fi series, professionally engrossing but unlikely to prompt your own feeding reflexes for more zombie fare. “The Girl With All the Gifts.” Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. Rating: R for disturbing violence/ bloody images, and for language. Playing: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood; also VOD.