Review of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) by Xavier V — 28 Oct 2015

Intended audience: People who read the book.

Warning spoilers.

Today I will be reviewing the film the scorch trials. The scorch trials is the second movie in the maze runner trilogy and is based on the the book written by paul dashner. or at least it was supposed to be. To an avid book reader such as myself nothing irritates me more than when they take a great book and completely change it in the movie. The movie itself was decent as it had tons of action but in terms of the story, cast and plot holes the movie failed.

The story for the scorch trials movie completely derailed from the plot of the book. In the second book of the scorch trials wicked is testing the subjects in order to test the brain patterns in the gladers heads to come up with a cure. The movie is completely different. In the movie it seems that they completely tossed out the notion of the trials and instead decided to extract the enzymes in the gladers' heads in order to come up with a cure. Not only does this change the entire plot but essentially means that the name of the movie is now irrelevant since they are no longer planning to put the gladers through any trials and essentially makes people wonder what the point of the first movie is. The maze trial was in order to map out the brain patterns of the gladers but in the scorch trials they said that it was an enzyme in their heads that made them immune, then why did they kill off valuable sources of enzymes? When they rewrote the plot they actually ended up ruining the consistency and as a result there are now many other plot holes in the movie but before we get to that let's talk about the cast for a second.

FIrst let's start off with the cast. For the most part the movie used characters who looked like what the author Paul Dashner had described Newt being tall thin and blonde, thomas dark haired white with blue eyes and most of the other gladers fit their descriptions pretty well. However in the scorch trials Brenda is shown to have short hair while she was supposed to have long hair and throughout the movie it kept bugging me since I thought she looked like the one armed woman from mad max. Next is Jorge who is supposed to be a tall, hispanic man somewhere in his twenties or thirties however he is played by Giancarlo Esposito and actor who is almost twice the age of what Jorge is supposed to be in the series. Although their acting wasn't bad just the fact that they looked different from what they were supposed to look like distracted me while I watched the movie. This probably won't be a problem for people who haven't read the books but it really does annoy those who have.

One of the first plot holes I noticed was that Aris played by Jacob lofland was sent into a building separate from his group. I didn't think much of it until he met up with his friends Harriet and Sonya when they found the right arm who had apparently rescued them from one of wicked's other facilities. This begs the questions, Why was Aris separated from his group? It had nothing to do with gender as in the movie they added more than just two groups of people and included both boys and girls so what made Aris so different that they sent him into the building with Thomas and the other gladers from the first movie. The answer is that because they changed the story they needed Aris to help facilitate Thomas's and the other gladers escape.

Something else to keep in mind is that in the beggining Thomas and Brenda's relationship was strained. Thomas and his group didn't exactly have the best of meetings when they met jorge and his group as a matter of fact Jorge imprisoned Thomas and his friends by dangling them upside down by the legs on some ropes over a ledge of sorts. Then when wicked attacked the base they were all escaping Brenda went to grab a locket with her brothers picture causing Thomas to go back for her instead of going down the zip line immediately. What was going through my head at the time was, why would he do that? I know for a fact that if one of my captors suddenly ran off while we were under fire and trying to escape that I would run without looking back ,because at this point Thomas wasn't really acquainted with her enough to care about her at that point.

Although the relationship development was rushed between Brenda and Thomas in the movie I was even more disappointed to find that brenda wasn't an immune like Thomas and some of the other gladers. This wouldn't have been a big deal if Brenda wasn't scratched by one of the cranks but she was and as far as I know the cure was never developed. Not in the movie and definitely not in the book so it is basically a death sentence and all they can do to help her is to give her the bliss(the drug that slows down the spread of the virus and was synthesized using the enzymes from immunes ). This is relevant because it is hinted at the end of the third book that Brenda ends up with Thomas and it bothers me because if Brenda dies in the movie then that isn't going to happen.

You may be thinking at this point that at least Thomas still has Theresa but here's something that'll grind your gears. Theresa betrays Thomas and the other gladers. To people who read the books they'll be thinking that it's not bad because she did it to save Thomas but no I am talking about Theresa's legitimate betrayal. In the book Theresa wasn't given a choice but to pretend to betray Thomas to keep wicked from killing him but in the movie it's different. Theresa betrays Thomas by giving their location to WICKED and ends up with Minho being recaptured by wicked after their assault as a result of Theresa's actions. This is why nobody likes a snitch and although Theresa was alright in the books I downright hate her guts now.

Overall one normally wouldn't look too deeply into these sorts of things but since I read the books I can honestly say I didn't like the movie. The overall plot changes, characters and inconsistencies really irritated me. The movie itself wasn't bad for those of you who haven't read the books I'd say it's worth it to watch as it is filled with action such as when they escape the wicked facility, make the dangerous trek through the crank infested city and the ending has you anticipating the next movie. If I had watched the movie before I read the books I probably would have loved it. I'd recommend the movie to people who haven't read the books but if you're a fan of the books then I think you'll only find pain and bitter disappointment.