Movie Review – Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

By Manofyesterday

Director: Wes Ball

Stars: Dylan O’Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Alexander Flores, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Patricia Clarkson, Aidan Gillen, Barry Pepper, Alan Tudyk, Lili Taylor, no mazes.

Before they had to find their way through a maze. Now they have to run for pretty much the whole film.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials begins pretty much where the first film left off. The group are led into a big facility where they discover that there are others that have been rescued from other mazes. But of course its too good to be true. They quickly discover that WCKD is in control of the facility and run out into the scorch, where they have to face a lot of trials. Oh, well, actually not really. They just run a lot to another place, then there’s a big battle and the film ends with Thomas giving a speech that the rest of the characters say is inspirational but actually it’s really not.

So, yeah, I was bored of this. The vast majority of the film felt like padding. The journey away from WCKD wasn’t enjoyable and didn’t seem to amount to anything. It just felt like more build-up to the next film. The new characters introduced aren’t interesting. The action is okay I guess, although I’m getting pretty tired of zombie-like creatures in movies. It seems like all the action follows the same beats. This film is really predictable as well, right down to the dialog. There weren’t any revelations where I was blown away and I still don’t think I’ve really been given a good reason why I should care about these characters. Most of them are basically non-entities and it’s just so bland and generic.

There’s a lot about how these kids are the key to the future of humanity, but everything is so dull that I find myself wondering if this society is even worth saving? I seem to be in the minority of this because it’s getting fairly good reviews on IMDB but I was bored. It was aimless and predictable and I just do not get the appeal.