Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
Director: Wes Ball
Stars: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Duration: 131 mins
Class: 12
KRS Releasing Ltd
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the second in the Maze Runner saga – the cinematic adaptation of the Young Adult book trilogy by author James Dashner. Part one was a solid little actioner, with its young protagonists led by Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) trapped in the titular maze by a shadowy organisation known as World Catastrophe Killzone Department (or, thankfully, WCKD for short); only to stage an adrenalin-fuelled break-out at the end, to be rescued by some generic military types.
Part two picks up exactly where part one left off, as the rescuees are taken to safety where they are examined by doctors, given food and clean clothing and warm beds … but few answers to their many questions. Thomas suspects that Janson (Aiden Gillen), the man running the bunker, is not as benevolent as he seems. Before long Thomas and friends are on the run again, escaping the bunker and having to negotiate a forbidding desolate landscape in order to seek safety within the mountains, where it is strongly rumoured that a group of rebels are hiding out from WCKD’s clutches.
With The Hunger Games saga about to reach its eagerly-awaited conclusion, it is up to The Maze Runner series – and the Divergent franchise – to pick up the ‘post-apocalyptic future’ ball; yet both fall quite short of reaching the former’s excellence.
The Scorch Trials has many plus points, not least of which the relentless action which fills out a great chunk of its running time with one gripping scene effortlessly giving way to the next. Each scene is meticulously executed with breath-taking aplomb by returning director Wes Ball.
He shows a dab hand at creating equal parts of suspense and chaos – from the various attacks on our heroes from zombie-like creatures known as ‘cranks’ to a drug-fuelled party from hell and the film’s final brutal confrontation, an unrelenting desert- based battle.
Many of Ball’s ballsy action scenes take place against the backdrop of some truly-impressive production design. The action has been taken away from the vast lush verdant Glade and its surrounding, imposing labyrinth of the first movie. Here, much of the action takes place in the towering remains of a city, where once-majestic buildings now stand desolately, some leaning precariously against one another like dominoes in mid-fall; others like the eerie, abandoned shopping mall where Thomas and co first take refuge, buried deep underground, together with some horrific creatures.
Many plus points, not least of which the relentless action
This all adds up to stiflingly-effective creation of the oppressive atmosphere of a dystopian society in ruins, a world where few stragglers survive in hiding from their oppressors and the future looks bleak.
Less successful, however, is the narrative. Newcomers to the franchise will have a hard time following the plot, given that the story picks up pretty much where it left off, with little by way of exposition of what has gone before. Many of the questions remain unanswered and the plot remains frustratingly murky, the action so relentless at times that the underlying storyline struggles to see the light.
There is still much to learn about the origins of the Flare, the virus which threw the world into chaos and that presumably created the ‘cranks’. Similarly, what WCKD’s ultimate aims are remains unclear – beyond their claims that they are looking for a cure.
Those in the audience seeking an action-packed couple of hours will certainly be satiated by Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. Those wanting more depth from both story and character, less so. To its credit, the film builds up sufficient tension in its final moments to leave you wanting to see how the whole saga ends, but part three, due for release in 2017, will have its work cut out for it, having to answer the many questions its predecessors have thrown up and bring the running saga to a worthy close.