Scorch Trials- Maze Runner film review by What The Flick?!

Full-text transcript of the Maze Runner: Scorch Trials review:

[00:00:07]

Ok. I’ve got we got about. Hello, welcome to the flick, I’m Christi, this is Alonzo, that’s bibs. There’s a second major horror movie. Are you aware of that? There probably at least one more, if not two. Right now, we’re at the second one, the scorch trials. I still don’t know what the Scopes trial. Will you please explain this to me? I think I think the idea of the first Masalha test makes everyone think the sports trials are actually like, you know, someone’s eyes are like ten out of ten on that scorching nicely. I think it’s all just those were very trying times for all of these kids who escaped the maze and they escaped the maze. And the whole earth is all like that. And then they have to run around and it’s really cool to check it out. The world outside hanging on by a very thin thread. It’s only a matter of time before the flare virus wipes the rest of us out. His entire facility is designed to keep you safe. Were they taking. They’re hiding something. These people are now they say they are. Thomas, what did you see? I never escaped. Tweaking what has been part of their plan. I they only have one question, whose side are you on? Thomas Dimmeys is one thing, but your kids won’t last one day and the scorch. Come on. No one’s come out of the sports in a long time. Let’s go, go, go. All those kids that were left behind, I don’t want to end up like that.

[00:01:57]

Career, Thomas, you know me. A lot of our friends died for us to get this far. So we can’t give up. It’s just about everyone wicket’s ever taking. Don’t ever stop. Me, stop them. Don’t you want to know why this all happened in? You’re so close to the truth. And John. I’m not sure it is really cool. I think I’m running, but not actually getting anywhere. This feels very repetitive. It’s a middle chapter. They didn’t get anywhere in Empire Strikes Back. Know, let’s not conversation Godfather two. They kept running, you know, so repetitive. It’s like, OK, now they’re in one concrete bunker with a bad guy in charge and they’re they’re in another one now. They’re running across the desert in the daytime. They’re running across it at night time. And there there’s lightning. It just feels like it’s the same thing over and over again. I don’t care. I’m in a weird place with these movies because I don’t give a shit about the story or the characters or the lead actor. But I like a lot of the supporting players. I think I think I think Dylan O’Brien is kind of a stiff, but they make it a point to always put somebody else on camera with him. Yeah. You know, just sort of like liven things up. And so the supporting cast is sort of interesting here. And I had to say that the parallel is kind of entertaining here. I, I actually really liked this movie a lot. Now it’s a high art God.

[00:03:43]

No, no one’s arguing that. But I thought it was really well produced, very exciting. I think baseball has a great eye for action. I love the way that this film was shot. There’s a lot of work and different planes within the frame when he can avoid cutting, you know, crosscutting and like an action sequence, like we’re getting so tired of where you can’t even tell what’s going on. He’ll do it all in one shot, but with a lot of foreground and background elements. And it’s very, very thrilling to know. But beyond that, if I shot in the desert, that’s where they’re all filler, whether they’re all walking across the top of a sand dune and the silhouette and there’s a gunshot that like pierces the silence and they all stop simultaneously. Like there there’s some artistry that made the flailing, gnashing zombies. But here’s the thing. I agree with you that he’s a good action film maker, but he’s a I don’t think he’s a very good storyteller. Oh, I think because I don’t care about this post apocalypse of all the gazillion post apocalypse I, I’ve been seeing of late. Well, that’s the script then. That is, you know, with the script and the script is a problem. And I you know, I don’t know, maybe the book’s a problem too. I didn’t read it. I and I shouldn’t have had to read the books that are coming. The commentators read the book. You know what? I should have had to for this movie to work. You know what? They’re really amazing.

[00:04:51]

I saw the Maze Runner when it originally came out. I haven’t read the books either, and I like the first one. Fine. It’s like Babies First Lost is actually pretty good. But one thing I think they’re kind of hazy on for me. Are they did they to. And right at the end, why was that remains. Well, that’s a good question, that they’re screening them or they’re looking for the audience and we find out on this one, all they really need is blood. So why did we need to have them in a maze? I was the toughest. And the more like in an American gladiator, I guess. Yeah, it’s a little a little bit. It’s like this one. The Maze Runner is just an overly elaborate prologue to this one. And this one is you’re right, it is episodic. It is just running from one place to another. I’m reminded of something Warren Beatty said when the reason why Quentin Tarantino fired him from Kill Bill Wednesday, he said this is just like one big action sequence after another and it just nothing else but anything but buildup to the fight. And Quentin was like, yeah, that’s the point. That’s the whole genre. When I look at the Maze runner, especially this one, I see someone who has looked at how video games convey a narrative and is actually adapting that effectively into a cinematic mode, not just something like Hit Man, which is like we’ll just steal a mechanic. When you look at the way that the beginning of this film is structured, it is structured so much and so effectively, like Fallout three.

[00:06:06]

I did feel like I was watching a video game in the way that this was unfolding, and I don’t always know that that’s a good thing in a cinematic context. Yeah, but again, you know, I think that if you are going for the peril and the monsters and the villains and the danger and the running and the adrenaline, that stuff all lands. I think that’s the whole movie. But my problem is that I can’t divorce that from plot and character in a movie that seems to at least try to have plot and character. I mean, yeah, there are Tarantino movies where clearly that’s not even on the table and who cares? You know, like, you know, I love the raid redemption. And that’s not necessarily so much about the plot and character because and they know it. This movie, I think, thinks that it’s giving me plot and character and it’s not. And I wish it would just shut up and have more zombies and run like this to care about as we’re supposed to care who lives and who dies, who was supposed to care about whether this guy, our hero, the one can indeed save everybody. And they’re all drawn so flimsy that it’s really tough to care. I actually like that he’s he’s kind of not the one and the whole the one ness, the thing that we find out he did actually is arguably very evil.

[00:07:13]

Like he’s actually like there’s there’s actual like a little moral complexity to the good versus evil element in the story. I like that. Yeah, OK. The episodic miss, I think it reveals something different in each chapter that kept me going and kept me interested and kept me wanting to see what came next. I liked that each one ended with a cliffhanger. It just was an interesting sense of momentum that got me through it. And I feel like ultimately all the plot points. Down to is something that we’re missing in a lot of Y.A. fiction, I’m not saying this movie does it brilliantly, but the idea that adults are terrible and cannot be trusted. Oh, I know that’s not right. I see right now, I can’t commit to this world the way that I commit to see The Hunger Games world. I like that one seems well drawn out and there’s a point to it. And there are characters within it where there are stakes and I care what happens to them. And this one feels like a phoned in post, but I don’t think it needs to be. First off, I’m not the biggest fan of The Hunger Games movies. I like them fine. But like, I don’t feel like this needs to be as good as The Hunger Games in order to be good. I don’t feel like, you know, in order to, like, stand up to the absolute what we consider to be the height of a genre is something that every genre film needs to do in order to be viable.

[00:08:24]

Just I’m enjoying this. I’m just using that as a point of comparison in terms of why this isn’t working. No, that’s right. I’m just saying that for me, that’s a non-issue. And The Hunger Games also is better than this in terms of you mentioned the supporting players. We have a ton of great actors and very, very small roles here who don’t get to do a whole lot. Like Taylor shows up for two second, Barry Pepper shows up for two seconds. Patricia Clark, Patricia Clarkson, rather, is in the very beginning and the very end. The Hunger Games will use its big cash or effectively, I don’t know, Julianne Moore really kind of always I feel like a lot of the characters in The Hunger Games are wasted, even though a few of them are done with great. Donald Sutherland has a lot to work with in The Hunger Games. Julianne Moore. And why are you here? Because you have a bigger moment in the last movie, because I would just that’s always a possibility. Yeah, I know. I did kind of it was almost a joke where like, OK, if you’re over thirty five and you’re bored, here’s someone you’ll recognize. You know, you should call Esposito. You know, he’s actually pretty good at it. Yeah. He gets, he has some things to do. Yeah. One fun scene and I will, I don’t want to spoil it but it has really effective use of walking after midnight. That Patsy Cline song I sing to my son almost every night at bedtime.

[00:09:27]

So but that was like a rare moment of fun in a movie that is super serious. And just like concrete and dust and misery and cold, concrete and dust and misery and that it has Oscar nominations based me in a way that feels CGY ish in terms of when you see. No. Well, I mean, one of the wrecked cities, you know, even a movie like San Andreas felt more tangible in its scope, in its chaos than this one. I looked at these these these vast landscapes behind them. And whatever that uncanny valley thing is, that makes me not think, oh, they’re standing in front of a green screen was not being clicked. I just thought, oh, they’re standing in front of a green screen and other movies. I don’t leap to that place. Fair enough. So what’s your number then, fellahs? I enjoyed it a lot. I don’t think it’s high art or anything like that, but I thought it was a really nicely paced, exciting movie. Very well shot. Eight eight out of ten. I’ll go five and a half because I had more fun than I thought I was going to. But I just can’t get into this because it’s not letting me be interested. Three point nine. So our number is five point eight is a fifty three percent on the tomato meter. If you didn’t like this one, don’t worry, there’s going to be at least two more. You know, the last book has to be two movies. Now it’s the Rupi.