Social media personality and professional wrestler Logan Paul is a man on a mission to pursue several talents. Another endeavor he’s tackling is acting in movies. Paul’s first film,The Thinning,released in 2016, is a sci-fi thriller set in a dystopian future slightly inspired by George Orwell’sNineteen Eighty-Fourand Aldous Huxley’sBrave New World.
The film focuses on an Earth going through human overpopulation. People are eliminated based on whether they pass or fail a standardized test, in a premise about the survival of the smartest. WhileThe Thinningmay seem more like a direct-to-video movie compared to popular big-budget survival features likeThe Hunger Games,The Maze Runner, andDivergentfranchises, this small thriller does have disturbing and intriguing concepts for audiences to contemplate.
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What is The Thinning About?
In an overpopulated world, the requirement from the United Nations is for each country to cut its population annually by five percent. Every state in the U.S. determines which people to eliminate based on how students perform on an exam. In Texas, the plot centers around a high school student named Blake (Logan Paul), the son of Texas Governor Dean Redding.
Dean approves of the standardized test called the 10-241 (aka “the thinning”) that each student is required to take once a year. However, Blake and many others are fearful of losing family members and loved ones to what many consider a barbaric law. Blake manages to pass the test, but his girlfriend Ellie fails, causing him to go into despair. He believes she will eventually be killed by test manager Mason King and the Department of Population Control.
Laina Michaels is another student who produces one of the highest scores on the test, and sells study guides beforehand so struggling students can cheat their way to a passing grade. Laina uses the money to care for her sick mom and support her younger siblings. While Laina succeeds in her exam, one of her brothers doesn’t do well and is taken to be executed. The following year, Laina passes her test, but is told that she failed. Blake fails his exam on purpose but isn’t sent to die thanks to a phone call from his father, proving that the testing system is rigged, benefiting wealthy families.
Blake and Laina end up working together to save the next set of students who are lined up for execution. They search for evidence proving that the Department of Population Control is corrupt, choosing who to kill not by test scores but by their own decision-making. The action scenes aren’t particularly unique or mind-blowing, butLogan Paul shows his physicalityby beating up several guards (including the menacing Mason King). Blake and Laina also spark some chemistry and humor, while getting caught up in suspenseful scenarios when breaking into highly secure areas of the high school to find the students held captive and the info they need.
Is There A Sequel to The Thinning?
The Thinning: New World Orderisthe sequelto the 2016 film. It continues the story involving a test to decrease human overpopulation, while others want to expose the corruption surrounding the exam and the villains responsible for taking out failed students. At the end ofThe Thinning, Laina manages to leak information to reporters concerning rigged test scores and Population Control guards beating up people. Blake and other failed students appear to be executed, but are actually drugged to sleep and sent to another facility. This other building is reminiscent of a prison, where failed students are alive but forced to do hard labor forAssuru Global (the company responsible for distributing the test).
As Blake reunites with his girlfriend Ellie (whom he thought was dead), he comes across a group of prisoners called the Worthy. Blake tries to get the group on his side and set up a plan to escape the slave labor facility. Meanwhile, Laina works with Ms. Cole (a teacher) and Jack (posing as a security guard for Assuru Global) to go undercover in Governor Dean Redding’s presidential campaign to find more evidence to expose “the Thinning” and end the evil program. This sequel manages to expand the story and the struggles of the protagonists going up against a threatening organization, while also establishing how technology can be both beneficial and harmful to the safety of humanity.
Where Can You Watch The Thinning?
The Thinningand its sequel can both be seen onYouTube Premium(formerly known as YouTube Red). Both films have rightfully been given praise for the performances of Logan Paul and Peyton List, but there’s also been negative criticism towards a familiar premise that hasn’t been fully fleshed out. The films manage to question how a corporation can use a single test to wipe out students considered unintelligent. However, there are several questions left unanswered, such as why students are left alive in a slave labor facility if the requirement was to eliminate five percent of the population each year.
There’s also Dean Redding, a conflicted villain who loves his son Blake and prevented his “execution” once, but was willing to give him up for the sake of “the Thinning” and his political aspirations. Did Dean actually believe Blake was executed and was then shocked to learn that his son is in fact alive, or is he just protecting his own public image? There’s no word on any current sequels in development, but after the second film left viewers hanging, hopefully the series continues to expand and provide closure to thisdystopian story.
