Maze Runner Scorch Trials film review- by Chris Stuckmann

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

[00:00:04] Maze runner, The Scorch Trials is the sequel to last year’s Maze Runner. This is a very fast release. I couldn’t believe how quick this actually got in the theaters. They must have just went right from the first to the second one in this movie picks up right where the last one left off. So if you don’t really know what happened at the end of the first one, I kind of have to, in a way, spoil it. And I apologize. But there’s really no way to avoid that. Essentially, the group of boys are now in this strange facility and they’ve discovered that the outside world is this place in which a disease is running rampant, that turns everyone into these plant like zombies. And very few people are immune to this disease. And some of these kids are amongst those few. So they’re very valuable. But for various reasons, I won’t spoil they’re not very comfortable at this facility and they decide to flee out into what’s known as the scorch and tried to survive. Now, the first major film is actually very surprising to me. I didn’t love it. I thought it was all right. There were some very good action sequences. Dylan O’Brien was excellent. But the ending I hated. I mean, I hated the ending of that movie and it really brought it down for me. This film is directed by the same person once again, starring Dylan O’Brien. And I got to say, the first half of this movie at least, was very surprising because I had a great time actually, with the first half of this movie, the first hour or so, Dylan O’Brien was great once again.

[00:01:12] And I’m not just saying that. I mean, this guy is really talented. He’s good in the action scenes and he’s good in the smaller, more subtle stuff. He’s definitely going to be huge in the future. And you know what? He was actually my number one pick for Spider-Man. They didn’t pick him, but that’s cool. He is excellent in this movie and he really helps ground the movie. And he was a protagonist that I wanted to care about. He was somebody that I wanted to feel this movie through. Also, there’s a lot of really intense running chases, as you would expect, with a title like Maze Runner, the director of this movie, and Dylan O’Brien himself clearly wanted to get like down and dirty and gritty and very realistic with some of the stunt work. There’s actually a stunt early on in this movie that sent chills through my body where character slides under a door that’s closing at just the right second. It was so well done. It honestly gave me goosebumps. And throughout that first hour, I was like, this is really solid. I’m having a good time with it. And then the movie stops and changes were introduced to another faction of people. And we’re supposed to suddenly care a lot about these characters who perhaps were more fleshed out in the book, because in this film I didn’t give a shit. There’s a strange party sequence where everyone’s getting drunk and having visions, and the movie just turns from a very fun but light on story postapocalyptic thriller into a strange acid trip of a love triangle situation with CGI monsters that weren’t CGI before.

[00:02:28] They were practical for the first hour. It was like all makeup and these zombies are just running like full speed. And that was like twenty eight days later, times ten. And then all of a sudden it was more like, I am legend. And that aspect of the movie really dropped off the map for me and it sort of became a different film. Then finally, within the last fifteen minutes, it picked up again. The movie screeched to a halt, though, during the second act. And even though some of the scenes were thrilling, including a total rip off of the lost world sequence where Sarah Harding, Julianne Moore falls on the glass and almost breaks through it, you’re lucky back. And that leads me to my main issue with this movie. It’s very derivative. It feels like ten other movies that we’ve already seen before and it doesn’t really feel that original. And the story simply isn’t very interesting. There’s a lot of great running chase sequences. It’s just that nothing really happens of interest, really. It’s just a lot of running from something else to something else and then running for something else, something else. And it doesn’t really have that heft, that drama that was needed because you don’t care as much about those characters. And the other issue is it’s two hours and eleven minutes long. And a lot of times people say, well, this movie is too long. Why was it too long, though? Because there are great movies like Gone With the Wind or Titanic that are four hours or three hours that are very financially successful because those movies were good and people cared about the characters saying a movie is over long doesn’t say anything.

[00:03:46] Why is it overlong? Because you probably didn’t care as much about the characters, but the pacing wasn’t as good or the story wasn’t as interesting. If all of those things are good, it doesn’t matter how long the movie is, you’re going to want to see more of it. So saying the movies too long is not really giving enough information. The characters weren’t as well developed as they should have. The last half was nowhere near as interesting as the first, and there’s a lot of running chase sequences that are well done, but in the end doesn’t really build to anything. So I’m going to give Maze Runner the Scorch trials a C plus. I pretty much feel the same way I did about the first one. They’re both all right. They’re better than other Y.A. adaptations out there, but they could be better, I think. Guys, thank you so much, as always, for watching and look forward to my first review in my series of Steven Spielberg reviews leading up to Bridge of Spies. That review is going to be for Duale, his very first film. That was actually a TV movie that did get a release in theaters. That’s going to be up this weekend. Guys, thank you so much, as always, for watching. And if you like this, you can click right here and get stuck, monetized.