Beyond The Trailer’s sentiment on the Maze Runner Cast

Full-text transcript of the Maze Runner review:

[00:00:00] Time to see just how much juice Teen Wolf still in O’Brien really has. You’re watching Beyond the Trailers review of the Maze Runner. You guys just keep me here. I can’t let you leave. Why won’t you tell me what’s out there? Histamines. Every morning when those doors open. The runners look for a way out. No one has ever survived a night in the mines. What happens? We call them grievers. We don’t belong here. So we built the maze. I think it’s time we find out what we’re really up against. So far, only Divergent has been able to come anywhere close to even touching the flames of the girl on fire. But still, Fox has high hopes for the maze runner for several reasons. First, there’s the obvious. It’s based on a series of popular young adult novels with Built In Action, All The Hunger Games and Divergent. Second, it stars Dylan O’Brien, the breakout star of MTV’s Teen Wolf. And no, not the hot guy. The funny guy on the show. Thank Wally West on Young Justice. And this is not just his first big movie since hitting the big time with Teen Wolf, but his first big movie period. Then third, we have less obvious reason, but perhaps the most important, the Maze Runner is produced by Godfrey, the producer of the Twilight films and The Fault in Our Stars. This guy is so in tune with his young adult audience that when I was on the red carpet for the fault in Our Stars, I had to wait to interview him because so many fans wanted his autograph and good ol, which seems to have put together a pretty solid movie here thanks to strong production design.

[00:01:41] This movie seems to have a little more weight to it than your average young adult cash grab. Sure, we think Hunger Games, but also Lord of the Flies that O’Brien has been surrounded with a strong supporting cast, including where the Millers Will Paultre, Game of Thrones, Thomas Brody, Sangster and Skins, Kosko Delirio. Plus, the film has some diversity, although these cast members aren’t well known yet again, Fox feels they might be soon as the studio has already begun preproduction on the sequel The Scorch Trials. They’d be happy if the Maze Runner performs on par with Divergent. But surely they’re hoping it will come closer to The Hunger Games. But can anyone really come anywhere close to Katniss and Company Man? There are a lot of red shirts in this movie. In fact, several times during The Maze Runner, I was reminded of Sam Rockwell’s character in Galaxy Quest being like, Hey, you guys don’t all have names, you’re going to die. And there was a lot of death in the Maze Runner, more so than is usual for this type of young adult film. It was usually on camera or at least the death began on camera and it was very violent and sudden.

[00:02:46] And as I said, a lot of it, much more so than The Hunger Games has ever had, which, of course, is supposed to be an entire movie about killing other kids, or at least the first two entries were. And speaking of The Hunger Games, the maze runner reminded me a lot of the first Hunger Games film, and that probably means we’re in for a heck of a sequel. However, this first entry. I didn’t love so much and I had a lot of the problems that I had with the first Hunger Games, interestingly, and that’s what I felt, a really poor job was done in terms of the world building of the movie. Now, to be fair, I thought that the end of the maze runner in the last 20 minutes or so got really interesting. And that’s another reason why I’m excited for the Scorch trials. I was like finally at the end of the movie, I was like, oh, I get the pitch for the maze runner. I get the hook, I get the clever idea that this author must have originally had. But I have to say, I think he doesn’t do a very good job of realizing it, or maybe he does. But I think the movie doesn’t realize it with its full potential. The whole movie, I think, has untapped potential, which again is why I feel a sequel could really be where this franchise or hopeful franchise gets on its feet or begins to begins to run.

[00:03:59] Right now it’s kind of just stumbling around, trying to find its way. What was my problem with the worldbuilding? Well, I think that it was really sloppy and that the exposition was handled by just a series of questions and answers. And I know that Thomas just came to the glade. So naturally, he has a lot of questions. But I feel that it’s a screenwriter’s job to think of more creative and varied and interesting ways to get information across. So it doesn’t seem so much like, you know, the audience asking questions. And I know Thomas is supposed to step in for the audience, but it just it just almost became comical how many questions he was asking and that he had to ask the questions before anybody would explain things to him. I just was caught off guard by that. And again, as I as I said, it’s sloppy exposition and not sophisticated writing is one would hope to see in any movie. And I think that being just because something’s a young adult film based on a young adult novel or maybe aimed at that audience is no excuse for unsophisticated, sloppy writing. No. Dylan O’Brien himself, though, did quite a good job. I thought he was very likable and I thought he was great at reacting to things. Steven Spielberg should give him a call or Gareth Edwards, who, of course, is taking over the Spielberg, you know, bag of tricks of a lot of reaction shots.

[00:05:11] Dylan O’Brien is very good at a reaction shot, but he’s not just good at reacting to things emotionally or with his face, but with his entire body, his running around the maze. He really made a show of it. I thought he did a very nice job flailing all around. I mean, you felt the danger. It was very good. Harrison Ford also does it kind of a similar, you know, body reacting to action sequences that you used quite well in Indiana Jones? You know, a lot of people, I think, still use that as the watermark or the benchmark for really good acting in an action film, just really making you feel like you’re there. So Dylan O’Brien was a great choice for this, as were his co-stars. There were some standouts. My my favorites were Thomas Brody Sangster, the kid for Game of Thrones. That he was really good is kind of like the leader, although it wasn’t till like later in the movie that I realized he had any kind of leadership role. And so, again, I blame the film for not setting up the hierarchy a little bit better. And then also, I liked KiYoung Lee. I thought he was very good as me Minho, one of the main runner. He was excellent, although, well, I can’t really go into spoilers here, but there were certain things where I was like, well, why would you take all the time to do that instead of just, I don’t know, drawing it I don’t know is weird.

[00:06:19] But then of course I’ve noticed Wil Poulter, how could you not? He had a very big role here, but I didn’t think much of what he did with it. And I think, again, not his fault. I think that the script maybe had too many characters. Maybe they they named too many of them. And I know they had to have a lot of characters. They can have a lot of collateral damage. But I think that there were so many people to talk about, so much ground to cover, that you never really got to know anybody, I think very well. And neither did neither did Thomas. I mean, he’s there for a very short period of time. How how annoying must that be to everybody else who was there for years? That there was also really funny. I think you could make a lot of good comedy sketches off of the Maze Runner. But I say that with with you know, with all due respect and, you know, I’ve got a number of people writing me because I had I get to go to a press screening for this. I’m a little late to the party to review it at the Thursday night showings I felt were too late. I couldn’t go to that because I have a Friday morning commitment.

[00:07:11] So I got so many messages from people and also opened abroad, you know, internationally before I came here. And a lot of people, to its credit, seem to be very happy with the way this turned out, which is, again, why I’m referencing the first Hunger Games. I think fans of the book and maybe fans of Dylan O’Brien in this kind of material. I also think this skews very young, like what they see, and that’s great. And so I think that’s a that’s should be considered a success for the Maze runner. However, at the same time, I think if you’re not into this kind of movie or if you can take it or leave it, you know, it’s not something you get totally excited about. I think that you shouldn’t totally write off the Maze Runner franchise, but I don’t think you need to show up for this entry. I think you could totally jump in on the next one and scorch trials where I hope they have not. They’ve said they’ve established things. We can go a little bit smoother and do a little bit more really hit the ground running. Although I do have to point out that while The Hunger Games is a fairly simple concept and so it’s very easy to get across, I think there’s something much more convoluted maybe is going on over. At the Maze Runner, and I think that it has not set it up at all, when the movie was over, I still really had no idea what was happening. [00:08:17] And I think that at some point your audience has to have a little bit better of a grasp on things than your main characters, even though I think in the beginning we’re supposed to be on the same page. On the same page. So that’s my review of the Maze Runner. Again, wouldn’t write it off, but I’m not too terribly excited about this first entry. However, I do have high hopes for the sequel. What do you think of the Maze Runner? Do you agree with my problems with the film, or where do you think that I missed an aspect that really made it stand out? And what did you think of all the death in a film like this? Did you think it was good? Did you think was too obvious because you knew who you’re like, oh, I know who’s going to die. I mean, if you watch our movies like this, I think you can really peg what’s going to happen. And what did you think of the last 20 minutes? Did you think that was where the movie really came to life, finally, or do you think where it went off the rails? What are your thoughts on the Maze Runner? Thank you so much for tuning into my review. And you can check out some more episodes right now from.