Review of The Maze Runner (2014) by Chris O — 27 Jun 2016

A brilliantly made YA film that manages to establish its world and bring thrilling moments that will keep you at the edge of your seat.

Dark and secluded, Thomas awakens in a moving crate headed upwards, unknowing where he is or what's going on. When he reaches the top, he finds himself trapped in a maze along with a whole population of young boys. He then takes it upon himself to find a way to escape and change life as they know it in the maze.

Novel to film adaptations have been a growing trend over the past several years, especially for young adult novels. From solid films such as the "Hunger Games" franchise or "The Fault In Our Stars", there has been some levels of success. However, there have also been plenty of mishaps such as the "Divergent" series. Thankfully, this is more on the side of the positives. Not only is this one of my favorite YA films in recent memory, but definitely stands out amongst others in the same genre.

Let's start out with the talent here because that's always a need to know basis. With a movie considering all young adults and younger, most of them are actually very good. Dylan O'Brien is a fantastic lead and manages to carry the movie, even in times where there are some glaring weak spots. He puts on a great performance and manages to make this movie shine. For the rest of the cast, I was about split down the middle. Guys like Newt (Thomas Sangster), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), and Captain Eyebrows (Will Poulter) all filled their roles really nicely. They each brought out the personality and style of their characters, making it their own in many ways. However, other sides such as Chuck (Blake Cooper) and Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), who were actual important characters, faltered at times, especially in big moments. The cast overall did a great job but there are some weak spots at times.

I also love the world that Wes Ball established from the very opening scene. He managed to create the scope and size of the entire maze, making you feel isolated and curious of the unknown. He established this reality in which these kids were trapped in the maze and he managed to keep you guessing at what was really going on. Now, the mystery was fun and all, but they used too many flashbacks, which eventually ruined the entire mystery about halfway through the movie. The mystery of what's going on will only push you for so long before some bad screenwriting takes over and pushes the movie back down to earth.

In a movie called "The Maze Runner", I expect some awesome running sequences and intense moments. However, what I got instead was some amazing visual sequences and some nail biting thrills, which more than made the movie a fun experience for me. There were multiple times when I was gripping the edge of my seat as the scene would draw toward a tight wedged moment. It's even better considering I was rooting for most of the characters, so it made those epic running sequences even more intense and thrilling.

Although I had fun with the overall screenplay and its thrills, the actual dialogue and narrative struggled on more than a few occasions. In order to progress the story, the writers and director would have the characters blatantly state a fact, necessary or unnecessary, in order to progress events. They might as well have looked at the audience and walked us through what everything was called step by step. You could either call that bad screenwriting or an insult. It could be an insult because the writers think their audience is too dumb to comprehend, when in reality, writers in Hollywood need to realize that audiences are not as dumbfounded as they think we might be. We do not need to be spoon-fed everything, and some things are better left to the imagination.

This movie really does a great job of establishing tone and pacing. I really like the darker tone that this movie had and it stayed consistent throughout. There were plenty of scenes that I absolutely loved in this movie and I had so much fun watching it. I've re-watched this movie probably about half a dozen times now, if not more. Even though it is a flawed film, it's still one I can watch over and over again.

In the end, this was an excellent YA novel to film adaptation. Although it has its flaws, primarily with its screenplay (not to mention the ridiculous ending), it will be a fun and thrilling time for most. It's sad to say that its sequel was no where close to the quality of this movie, but I'm glad that this first film was created.