Review: MAZE RUNNER: SCORCH TRIALS Leads to Zombies And War
From The Hunger Games to The Giver to Harry Potter, audiences are told, in no uncertain terms, that adults have done the next generation no favors in establishing the world they're set to inherit. At worst, these stories prey upon the demographic's penchant for naval-gazing self-drama. At best, they lay out the situation in imaginative and engaging ways, ways that ideally lead the participant beyond him/herself as the greater world is considered.
No doubt owning its very existence to the success of The Hunger Games film series, the similarly future-set dystopian The Maze Runner (based upon a series of books by James Dashner) proved to be something of a surprise hit a year ago. Much like The Hunger Games, the story centers on a single teen who is thrust into a desperate survival situation by an evil adult society. Unlike The Hunger Games, the character of Thomas lacks in the way of both magnetism and charisma. Dylan O'Brien, who plays Thomas, fully commits to the role he's given, a character that is slowly revealed to be of special origin - maybe even a "chosen one."
So yes, the cliches of dystopian YA (and beyond) are fully present with this series. But despite that, both Maze Runner films succeed. Wes Ball, a cinema jack-of-many-trades who made his big-time directorial debut with the first film in this series, has continued with the fast-tracked second entry, Scorch Trials, a larger scale direct continuation that gets the characters out of the titular maze -- much of the first film's primary base camp setting closely resembled the low-budget world of Battle of the Planet of the Apes -- and into the considerably more expansive bombed-out world proper. (One skyscraper has toppled into another - perfect for a lopsided chase scene!)
Ball's directorial approach is a welcome one. He brings a classical touch to the proceedings, distinguished by a careful if utiltarian focus on visual storytelling and the kind of deliberate pacing not often found in youth-centric films. Here's hoping that he will finish out the series, but that it won't pigeonhole him beyond it.
The first film focused on Thomas waking up, devoid of memory, in a rustic encampment located in the center of a giant maze. The maze was controlled by an unknown organiztion that was later revealed to be a maniacal, overarching organization known unsubtly as WCKD. The walls of the maze shift, and terrifying mechanized cyber-death bugs prowled its corridors. No one had, of course, ever lived to escape it. But, Thomas proved different. By the end of the first film, the surviving cast's maze-running days seemed to be behind them.
The first film focused on Thomas waking up, devoid of memory, in a rustic encampment located in the center of a giant maze. The maze was controlled by an unknown organiztion that was later revealed to be a maniacal, overarching organization known unsubtly as WCKD. The walls of the maze shift, and terrifying mechanized cyber-death bugs prowled its corridors. No one had, of course, ever lived to escape it. But, Thomas proved different. By the end of the first film, the surviving cast's maze-running days seemed to be behind them.
Now, our small alliance of rebels finds themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire. They're in the fortified Nazi-like clutches of WCKD, as led by the conniving Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson - better than all this, but still...), a labcoated despot convinced of her own good intentions. She will do whatever it takes to find a cure to the virus that has led to the downfall of humanity. She's deduced that the answer must lie within a small group of "immunes" - the maze running prisoners of the first story. Mostly they are boys, along with one mysterious girl, played by Kaya Scodelario.
The reveals come slowly if at all, as the heroes of Scorch Trials spend the entirety of the story wandering around the depressing, crumbly landscape. Viewers spend almost as much time wondering just what's going on, and who can be trusted, as they do. But, if one is willing to surrender to the positive attributes of these films, and take them on their own established if shadowy terms, this need not be a point of frustration.
The dystopian gloom and squalor of the Maze Runner world is far more engrossing and believable than that of, say, the Divergent series, or even the oddball Dr. Suess-ian flair of The Hunger Games' Capitol. This is certainly to the film's benefit, as the prevailing genres of the story prove to be zombie horror and combat. Since there are wide subsets of potential filmgoers that would be turned off by the descriptors "horror movie" and "war" film, Scorch Trials will likely be described as a "dystopian survival drama" - which it is, on its surface. But, however one cares to classify Scorch Trials, it stands as a respectable sequel to its satisfying predecessor. The film is just as ridiculous and just as compelling, if not more so on both counts. It is advisable to embrace the former and allow the latter.
Fans of the first Maze Runner will find much to be satisfied with this time around. Likewise, more casual filmgoers will appreciate the racheting-up of the supporting cast, introducing Giancarlo Esposito as Jorge, a charismatic resistance leader, and Rosa Salazar as Brenda, his kinda-sorta daughter. The very welcome Lily Taylor and Barry Pepper eventually show up, as well. Along with the rest of the cast, many returning from the first film, they navigate the "maze" of the broader blown-up world. They ask and answer big questions (most obliquely), and live and die through the select and well-realized action sequences.
Just as the first Maze Runner funneled right into this movie, the ending of Scorch Trials means that there darn well better be a third one. It takes certain amounts of gumption and confidence to end these films with such cliffhangers. One assumes that the whole series must have already been greenlit by its studio, 20th Century Fox.
In any case, as far as the current trend of dystopian YA cinema goes, one could do far worse than The Maze Runner films. The Scorch Trials, complete with its gloomy if thought-provoking message of overarching and inescapable control by a wickedly misguided adult world and its broken systems, is a fine yarn for those willing to trodge the depths alongside of the characters. It only makes this critic sad that this is the pervasive metaphor - one of systemic failure, elusive hope, and a sort of sacrifice of future generations - that we have to hand down to our youth.
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