The Maze Runner

“Every morning when those doors open, the runners look for a way out. No one’s ever survived a night in the maze.”

Riding on the massive success of The Hunger Games comes this latest teen-flick. It seems that rather than sex-driven or rebellious films, teenagers key market place is the dystopian future. Hunger Games (obviously), Divergent and Transcendence, now the Maze Runner joins them.

Based on the bestselling book, we watch as Thomas wakes up with no memory of who he is or where he is from. All he does know is that he now lives in the Glade, the centre of a giant maze which they must escape from, dodging danger and disaster all the way through. A rather riveting premise to say the least, it also features a rather interesting conundrum by including several other boys in the maze, presenting an almost Lord of the Flies-like scenario when the decision to work together or split into factions arises.

A rather young cast does a good job at portraying these young men fighting for their lives. The panic and immediate call to action leaves little room to expand as a character but there are a few breathers where the talent becomes obvious. We do see some well-established and rather unique characters, but there are too few of them, and even those few who can, would only be described as developing characters in quite a loose term.

The directing of the film is impressive and shot in a stylish manner. The high octane nature of the actual Maze Running captures the intensity in a manner that can easily grip you, especially with an interesting set up. The tension it amasses works in an effective way, and there’s a nice puzzle solving element to use logic and sensibility as a driving emotion.

However all of this action comes at a cost, spending too much time with plot and mystery results in little plot development throughout the first half of the film. Then in the second, where they could have focussed on the more long term effects of the constant running and fighting on the characters, and too further develop them, instead they sacrifice the interesting premise for more action and trying to hastily explain everything as quickly as they can before time runs out.

The entire mystery over what lies within the maze cannot help but be unfulfilling as we’ve had an hour of hinting at them. Not only that but the monsters are not that scary up close, they use an excellent tense atmosphere in the build-up, but it just does not deliver when they are finally revealed. The pace builds at too high a rate for the rest of the film to support it. eventually it has to stop towards the end, and that’s where we find the biggest problem of all.

This is obviously an attempt to start a new franchise, and that is a perfectly reasonable goal for films today. But the best franchises can do it subtly, finding a happy medium between ‘adding in another instalment for no reason’ and ‘making it blatantly obvious that another is needed’. The Maze Runner swings much more towards the climax. The ending is so anti-climactic and unsatisfying. I know why they have done it, to hammer in the fact that there will be a sequel and you must see it.

So despite the intense action and pleasing direction, led by a talented cast, the Maze Runner sacrifices too much of its plot and character development in order to try and launch a new franchise. But with a plot too closely linked to the Hunger Games, and with a much too obvious sequel setup, it certainly is not outstanding.

Result: 4/10