The Maze Runner Review

A-maze-ingly Mediocre

Last Fall, months before the first film even debuted, 20th Century Fox put a screenwriter in charge of writing the sequel to The Maze Runner, a film based on a series of YA novels. That kind of confidence seemed well founded once The Maze Runner debuted to $32 million this weekend. Right alongside the first box office numbers came a release date for the second entry, The Scorch Trials, which will arrive a year after this entry. Hopefully sequels are a bit more consistent in quality, as this one has promise, but winds up mostly squandering it.

Here's the weird part about The Maze Runner; there are some parts of this movie I was really into it. It was has this vibe of mystery to it that reminded me more of The Twilight Zone than anything else, and the way the society of people trapped within the maze works is actually really fun to watch. Thomas, played by Dylan O'Brien, is our hero in this adventure and he's a perfectly fine protagonist to spend two hours with. Not a ton of personality on him, but he's got a can-do attitude that's fun to watch and he can handle himself in scenes dealing with either action or emotions. 

The rest of the cast is pretty much taken up by a bunch of stereotypical personalities that don't get any real depth. That's not too bad for some of them, such as an antagonist played by Will Poulter, but others just remain boring, ironically even during scenes in the film towards the end that champion individualism. The worst offender in terms of being a boring character is Theresa, played by Kaya Scodelario.

She's the only woman within the maze, and she's also said to have some kind of important connection to Thomas. Surprisingly, despite all of that being given to her, the script never gives her anything to do in the film and I swear, she's got like 2 lines of dialogue in the finale. What a shame. At least the climax of the film involves some cool action courtesy of the films entertaining creatures called Grievers. They're easily one of the films more effective elements, being a menacing threat for all of those in the maze to face.

Now, for the most of the movie, The Maze Runner is a decent enough venture. The characters are lacking, but the mysteries told in the film are pretty effective and there's a lot of cool action. But then the ending, or should I say endings, arrive. It all just dissolves into a massive commercial for the next installment, with very few answers for this films plot being given. It's really frustrating, not just in the endless amount of set-up for a sequel, but also in the fact that the film piles on needless plot point after needless plot point in these final few minutes. While the rest of the movie was far from perfect, or even that good, it was at least better than this horridly done ending that just puts a damper on the whole proceedings.