Review of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) by Ydnar4 — 22 Nov 2015

I enjoyed the first Maze Runner movie. I didn’t read the books but I found the first film to be fairly entertaining and it was the first time that we got an adaptation of a young adult novel that wasn’t the Hunger Games that was actually tolerable. I like the kick off of The Scorch Trials. Its mystery is very similar to the first movie only with more of a sci-fi spin on it but eventually this film began to wear thin. There are also some exceptional new characters that are introduced all throughout the film played by some familiar faces like Giancarlo Esposito and Barry Pepper.

There is too much going on in the Scorch Trials, but then its also too long at 131 minutes because there are several points in the film where the story seems to be at a stalemate and adds to length despite not being an essential component. Then they add zombies to the mix for a little while and they still have to keep away for the main villain so that clogs things up. Plus, these zombies are sometimes made up actors and sometimes they are CGI so that really screws up the continuity.

Finally we get to Dylan O’Brien who impressed me in the first film and looks to have some potential to be a star in more films in the future, but I could not stand his character by the ending of this movie. He is very comparable to Captain America with his pureness and always has to do the right thing. You need to have a hero with at least one flaw. Then it just gets to a point where it is unbelievable and annoying because it just seems like an easier way to drag the film on and allow more sequels. I know this is really not O’Brien’s fault that his character was written that way but it just made the film so predictable. This character is only supposed to be a teenager and teens are not that moral. I also got really sick of his over exaggerated running.

Then much like the first film, we are left with a cliff hanger ending in order to set up a sequel. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so pathetically obvious and this movie wasn’t so shaky in the first place, but I’ll probably still watch the third film just because I want to see how the new characters will fit into the next film, so I guess I’m just as gullible as anyone else.