The Maze Runner

The following review for The Maze Runner concerns all but the final fifteen minutes or so of that movie. I’ll get around to those final fifteen minutes (during this review), but everything you're about to read, until I state otherwise, avoids those final fifteen minutes.

Okay? Great. Let’s proceed.

Our protagonist, Thomas, discovers himself afflicted with amnesia and trapped in the center of a massive maze.

An entire village of young boys lives at this maze’s center. Not one of them recalls his past or how he arrived there.

The entrance to the rest of the maze opens every morning and closes every night. Those trapped inside the maze’s main body at night face a league of flesh-eating monsters.

A cage rises, once a month, from a trapdoor in the maze’s center. The cage always contains supplies and a new memory-deleted recruit.

Gally, the boy who first arrived at the maze, serves as the movie’s sympathetic antagonist. While Thomas urges his fellow villagers to challenge and successfully navigate the maze to freedom, Gally wishes to keep everyone safely tucked in the maze’s center, where the monsters haven’t yet attacked anyone.

Benjamin Franklin said that “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Thomas would’ve agreed.

The directing worked. The acting felt solid. Most of the characters proved well developed, while a few others came across as little more than a name each. The cinematography for several scenes played beautifully.

Must I file a grievance? The wardrobe and makeup departments might’ve rethought their strategies. The characters’ clothing, hair, skin, and teeth appeared too well sustained for a group of boys who lived separated from society, but I’ve nitpicked by this point.

Now. The movie's final fifteen minutes. Here’s where the movie’s well-earned goodwill swirled down the thunder bucket.

After Thomas led the villagers through the maze and inside a science lab. The movie had, up to this point, promised answers to mysteries (such as from where these kids arrived, who put them in the maze, and why) flavored by a great plot twist. The story failed, painfully, to cash a single one of these checks.

I won’t spoil the twist for you here. I couldn’t because I couldn’t possibly explain what the hell happened. Essentially, it went something like this:

“We (the scientists, now dead--or are they?--for unspecified reasons) put you (the boys) in the maze to accomplish A because of B and C, which have nothing to do with each other or A. But wait! A didn’t really happen. We lied! What really happened was D . . . or did it?”

The Maze Runner promised twists, explanations, and at least some fraction of a resolution. However, I left the theater armed with none of these satisfactions. The movie cheekily told its audience that they must wait for the sequel to get their answers.

If the movie’s writers wanted to go that route, they should’ve just skipped everything mentioned two paragraphs above, rolled credits right after Thomas and crew entered the science lab.

I would love to believe that the next movie will answer my questions, but such events as Prometheus, Lost, and M. Night Shyamalan have trained me to distrust these promises.

Worst of all, these last fifteen minutes degraded our previously well-written, sympathetic antagonist who made mistakes based upon noble, human motives into an uninteresting, bad-for-the-sake-of-bad guy.

I would encourage moviegoers to watch all but the last fifteen minutes of this move. When Thomas leaves the maze, leave the theater. I’m serious. You won’t miss anything worthwhile, unless you value an ice cream headache.

The Maze Runner offers a great ride, provided that its audience knows when to get off the coaster.

(You can catch my short fiction at martinwolt.blogspot.com and my novels, such as "Daughters of Darkwana" on Kindle)