The Maze Runner

The best feature of Director Wes Bal’s The Maze Runner is the fact it has a diverse cast of talented young actors such as Dylan O’Brien, Ami Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter and Kaya Scodlario, who we look forward to seeing in better fare.

It’s not that The Maze Runner is a bad film.  There is a lot of good action and suspense, but the script by Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin based on James Dashner’s novel becomes immensely convoluted even for someone such as me, who has an enormous capacity for suspension of disbelief.  And, perhaps, that is much the fault of the novel itself, which I have not read.

The characters find themselves on a wide expanse of land, surrounded by high walls that periodically open to a maze in which there are spider-like monsters.  Each month, some new captive appears without memory of his past from an elevator and over a three-year period a community has formed with tasks and rules.  Why they are there and who controls the opening and closing of the walls, no one knows.

 

The real question we begin to ask ourselves as the story evolves is how this enormously complex structure came into being in such a relatively short time.  But, we discover this is a test of both the characters and our indulgence in preparation for a sequel.

I give The Maze Runner a 3 out of 5.