(There will be spoilers. I have to talk about the ending to make a point. You've been warned.)
Well, now that the festival is over, at least we can get back new releases now that there are actually new movies being released. I'm glad I missed the whole no good deeds fiasco (Apparently critic screenings were cancelled two days before release to save a supposed surprise twist ending which was the fact that the guy savagely beat his wife which they didn't want covered by mainstream media because of the whole Ray Rice thing) and now we can go on to movies that at least don't bring up incidents of domestic violence. I made an effort to see two of these movies friday and I'm going to be splitting them up into two reviews. Why? Well, mostly to try and increase my readership (seriously, tell your friends, I think the blog is great otherwise why would I keep doing it?) and mostly because the two movies are both based on books, but different enough that they don't warrant a side by side comparison. Now the first one of these I'm talking about is The Maze Runner.
Now before I begin, I just want to say two things.
1. No, I did not read the books
2. The books, DO NOT F*CKING MATTER!
If this statement confuses or annoys you, I'll be explaining in more detail in a think piece post I plan to write on Monday. I'll come back and retroactively link to it here.
So, with that out of the way, let's begin the review shall we?
Plot Summary
Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) wakes up in an elevator that arrives at a place called the Glade. He finds that it's run by a group of boys all around his age, none of whom can remember anything except there names. They also tell him that surrounding is a maze and that in the maze are things called Grievers. The boys have also divided up the work maintaining the glade amongst themselves, one of the groups being the titular maze runners, a group who runs into the maze in order to map it with the goal of finding a way out. After on these maze runners is killed, the leader of the glade Alby (Aml Ameen) goes out with one of the runners, only to get injured and get locked in the maze (the maze closes every night) but not before Thomas runs in to help him and the other runner Minho (Ki-hong Lee) survive the night. After that, Thomas becomes a runner, they kill a greiver, use part of it to find a way out, and escape the maze only to find that the whole thing was setup by the WCKD corporation in hopes of finding kids strong enough to not only deal with what's revealed to be an earth scorched by the sun, but also a virus going around that they have no cure for. Yeah, the slightly interesting kids trapped in a giant maze turns into kids have to save post apocalyptic earth and my god is that fucking stupid.
Pros - The Maze actually looks pretty cool to start, and at first I thought the whole film was okay. It wasn't trying to be lord of the flies which is a smart move because very few things can compete with lord of the flies, and I actually thought the whole idea was kind of cool at first.
Cons - Boy, where to start. First off, too many characters. Sure I know
most of their names now, but mostly because the names are unique without
being silly (Looking at you Katniss Everdeen), not because any of the
characters are interesting. Except Chuck, but only because I'm convinced
they were trying to rip off chunk from the goonies. Here's a side by
side comparison of the two of them.
Cons Continued - They even attempt to throw in Discount Kristen Stewart Kaya Scodelario in the third act as Therese but I'm convinced she was only there because she was in the book, because she was next to useless. And the worst part is, even with all of this, it's still better than the first hunger games movie (come at me bro, I stand by it.) The monsters are also butt ugly, the plot steers off into lunacy in the end and overall it's just kind of a meh. Not boring, just meh.
Final Score - 4/10
It's visually impressive (aside from the ugly ass grievers) and while I wasn't bored to tears, when it was done I already knew I was skipping the sequel. It's still a four though, mostly because it could've been better and what I did like about it mostly works. I can't recommend this to even fans because most of you will probably end up saying the book was better anyways. So yeah, there you go, if you're a fan of the franchise just read the books again and save yourself ten bucks and heartache.
If you want to know more about why the books don't matter, once again I'll be posting a think piece this coming Monday which I will retroactively insert a link to here.
Now I'm reviewing another movie based on a novel, but this ain't no YA novel. Expect a review of A Walk Amongst The Tombstones Tomorrow.
(Want More? Why not check out some of my other reviews along the side? And remember, tell your friends, we're mostly non threatening I promise.)
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