Sadly, I fear that none of the editor, writer or producer etc will make it pass the thinning, as they are no doubt failing their social study and/or math class.

The movie is, at the very least, entertaining. The acting is pretty good and it attempted to paint a complete world picture of how and why things are happening. If we were to disregard certain details, the story could be believable, there are always last resort measures when we are faced with potential extinction should we choose not to act. The elements of politics, special interest, and others makes the movie mirror our own world, making it more believable.

But unfortunately, they didn't think things through and tried too hard on certain aspects, and the illusion fell apart.

The premise, or rather concept of the back story, that the world requires de-population, is a reasonable one. In fact, one of the suggested method of limiting birth have been practiced by, most famously, China for quite a long time. Unfortunately, the goal was set at an unreasonable high point of 5% annually. This will be explained at the of the review for those who care for numbers.

The setting and content of the movie also contains some paradoxes. While morally speaking, culling of the inferior is always questionable at best, there are many examples of how it can be done. Objectively speaking, if someone has to die, it "should" be those who cannot contribute to society. For example, the old and infirm like Hitler did, he's not a good guy by any stretch of the term but the choice was logical. Now, age does carry with it wisdom, so outright killing people based on age would make no sense, thou was presented as an option in the movie. However, with the contrast of killing the young generation of the future, somehow the main character's mother, someone who is I believe terminally ill and appear quite useless did not make it onto any form of culling list makes no sense. Given the premise of the "world" in the story, it felt like a rather forced sob story that is completely unrealistic in-universe.

Another character of interest is Mr.Football star. In the real worlds, colleges and universities accept people on a variety of criteria, not all academic, because society needs different types of people. While I can't say I like the character as a person, it doesn't make any sense that someone with special talents of any form, even if one that is useless in terms of "production and innovation", would be judged strictly the same way in a standardized test. That said, this could be a result of political compromise. The matter of life and death is serious business, so the allowance of special talent leads to potential of abuse so laws were made rigid in order to prevent them. Unfortunately, that didn't quite go as planned. If that is the case however, then there is the problem of what if there are genius students who excel in one or few subject matter and would have contributed greatly to society but was unfortunately culled due to failing every other subject? Standardized testing have never been and never will be a perfect form of measurement. This is more of a food for thought than anything else.

Now, the numbers I promised. 5% annually might not seem much at a glance, but the fact is, if the goal is reached, global population will be halved in 13 years, so within one generation, we will be left with only 25% of the population that we started with. Even if we assume that there is over 10 billion people at the start, reducing to 2.5 billion is rather extreme. Therefore, it is not likely for it to be a long term project and thus making the content of the story unlikely, the institution and legislation appears to be for more of a long term project. It's also extremely unfair to just one generation if culling is only done to them and only lasted for their generation. Furthermore, if we consider our current demographics, 5% of the population is more than 10th, 11th and 12th graders combined. That means even if every single student is culled, the project will grind to a halt after a mere 5 years--there will be no more students, this is taking into consideration of new enrollment and no graduates-- that is all student are culled, specifically, the sum of 1 to 18 years old(existing and future student) is not enough for 25% of the population. Similarly, "no birth" is not enough to achieve the rate of decline required, as children born within a year does not constitute 5% of the population Realistically speaking, 0.5 to 1% will be a more suitable number, this will allow roughly half of all student to graduate. Also, this would mean that it will be a long term project, thus not drastically unfair to just one or two generation.

Frankly speaking, this number problem is what prompted me to write this review. How does such a elem... OK, freshman high school level matter get missed in a movie about education, even if the education is merely a setting?

"Warning, lock down is now in progress. 30 seconds 'til lock down. Testing to begin in 15 minutes." If you want a perfect example to show how to transform a rather original movie into a typical teenage story that can be followed by an infinite number of sequels, "The Thinning" is the right movie for that. Admittedly, at the first moment I found the basic idea masterful. A sort of "The Purge" on an academic level. It turns out that the natural resources of planet Earth are no longer sufficiently present and livable space is limited because the oceans have appropriated land (due to the global warming I presume). The world decided to take drastic measures. In the U.S. they found the ideal solution. And it's not what you'd think it'll be. Nope, no birth control or the elimination of older folks who are terminally ill. The bright idea is that school-age youngsters need to undergo an ultimate final exam. You had to endure panic anxiety when it was the period of exams again at school? Well, this would be your worst nightmare in that case. You don't pass this exam, there's not even a possibility for a resit. This way they attempt to reduce the population by 5% annually. So far the ingenious part of the film. I honestly admit that the images made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Especially when I saw those innocent little children taking their first "Thinning" exam and I suddenly started realizing that some of them won't have a bright future. The rest is as predictable as it can get and at times it's really terribly ridiculous and unrealistic. I could live with once again that idyllic image of a superior America and that they are using this process so that a more intelligent population would arise. As a result the U.S. would become the best country in the world once again. Stunning. They'll achieve this by eliminating all the dumb kids. A revolutionary idea that'll disgust you at first, but at the same time it's so fascinating that your curiosity flares up again and you'll keep looking intensely. But then ridiculous events start to rule. When someone uses camera images to figure out a password or someone tries to pick up a tiny pin lying on the floor 3 meters far with a magnetized iron wire, I start to sigh again. Add to this the obligatory romantic slant with a momentary mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and I start groaning even more. Anyway, I was wondering why the unfortunate students who didn't pass, needed to be disinfected once more. Admittedly, afterwards it became clear. What I didn't expect was the fact it was all so predictable. Halfway through I could enumerate roughly what was about to happen and how it would end. Only I didn't foresee the ultimate ending. And this ending irritated me the most. An open end in such a way that a follow-up appears to be self-evident. And everybody knows what I think of sequels. If you think about it more deeply, this film actually is a little reflection of our society at present time. On a political level strings are pulled, so a situation turns out better for those that rule. Wealthy and influential families sometimes have an advantage. Obtaining a scholarship because someone excels in sports, and thus it's not necessary to have a high I.Q., is something that exists in the U.S. nowadays. And the ordinary students are as always the victim (even though they have the correct number of brain cells). All in all a shocking subject with some acceptable acting, even though it's a low-budget film. Had they made a different ending, my opinion about it would probably be milder. Now they have more or less a limp commercial excuse to come up with some more sequels.

I understand there is a sequel made for this film; I do not know how wise that is because there will not be the same suspense element that this one had. This film is both tragic and scary. It is tragic because there is a chance that part of the strategy of this film may be initiated by the government at some point in the future. We already have tremendous pressure on our young adults with standardized testing like the SAT, GMAT and several other thinning devices. It is not hard to imagine more stringent ones down the line. However, when it comes to population control; it probably would not start with high school students; it would start with prisons. All the prisons in a country could easily be eliminated and turned into slave labor, like the people in this film. But that entire population is less than 1% of the population. We would have to come up with 4.5% from other sources. Hospitals could provide some. Old age homes could add to the number, and eliminating politicians could make up the rest of the difference. Most likely, however, if there were a real MATH elimination of the world's students, China would hardly be affected at all, and the US would probably lose over 9% of their high school students; but that wont happen anytime soon. Good luck with that idea.