Maze Runner: The Death Cure
By the time the first film adaptation of The Maze Runner was released, I wasn’t reading young adult novels anymore. After finishing The Hunger Games trilogy in high school, my interest in reading post-apocalyptic trilogies about teenagers fighting the “system” had dropped. It wasn’t even because I had the mentality of “if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all” about them; I just didn’t care. I had grown out of them by that point, focusing more on college and stories that didn’t rely on love triangles, teenagers killing teenagers, and the usual post-apocalyptic fare as heavily as those typically did. It also didn’t help that seeing the Hunger Games film adaptations on the big screen reminded me of the good and bad of the genre.
Cut to 2018 as I’m surprised to discover that the big finale for the Maze Runner films was coming out in January. Releasing a film like that in January is never a good sign but I also remembered the big news surrounding the film in 2016 when production was halted due to Dylan O’ Brien, the lead in all three films, nearly dying after a car stunt went awry. Once that came to light, the odd release date made sense. It was then that I realized The Film Yap gave me an opportunity to answer a question that I would ponder here and there: did I miss out? While most YA movies are not award winners, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any good ones. With that in mind, I decided to see what the series had to offer as I binged the first two films in order to see if the finale was more like Harry Potter or something closer to the Divergent series in quality.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure takes place half a year after the ending of 2015’s Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. In case you forgot (it’s been nearly three years so that wouldn’t be surprising), let me refresh your memory: the Maze Runner gang finally found the rebel group The Right Arm only to be double-crossed by Kaya Scodelario’s Teresa, leading the evil corporation WCKD to kill and kidnap some rebels, including Ki Hong Lee’s Minho. Since then, the Maze Runner gang has teamed up with The Right Arm to find out where Minho has been taken. After an action sequence involving a WCKD train, they discover that Minho is most likely being held in the last city still standing. It also happens to be where WCKD’s base of operations are, leading the Maze Runner gang to attempt to take on WCKD on their home turf.
It became apparent during my viewing of Scorch Trials that these films are enjoyable for the same three reasons: good visuals, enjoyable action, and a talented cast. It’s no different for The Death Cure. The film has a straightforward story that takes too much time to tell it. Then again, I never felt the film’s pacing was damaged because of it. It just felt like the film was being a little too redundant at times, especially for a film that’s trying to be a prison break film, a “save the world” film, a semi-war film, and a bombastic finale that ties up all the loose ends. As a result, the chaotic third act goes on a bit too long but I never would call it a mess. I think the reason for that is because despite the chaos, the talent was always fun to watch.
The cast is incredibly talented. Dylan O’ Brien is great, Thomas Brodie-Sangster has great emotional and comedic moments, Rosa Salazar and Giancarlo Esposito were fun to watch, Aidan Gillen was a villain you love to hate, and the list goes on. Even Ki Hong Lee and Kaya Scodelario, two actors who got very little to work with in the previous film, had really good moments. Unfortunately, this film’s character development was mostly lacking. To the series’ advantage and disadvantage, it has focused more on the brotherly connections of the Maze Runner gang rather than focusing on building each character personally.
Even Thomas, the main character, seems to have been given very little in development since the first film, creating more of a standard action hero in the final film rather than a three-dimensional character that you fully understand. This leads to a finale that has some good emotional moments but, obviously, could’ve been better if the film had focused more time on small character moments rather than just the action. I can’t believe I’m saying this but there was so much potential in the characters that a love triangle (which is hinted a lot in this film and the last one yet never utilized in either) would’ve actually been really beneficial in the long run. Without it though, we’re given a film that has a talented cast but very little depth in the characters.
Moving away from the characters, the visuals are actually really impressive in this film. When I watched the first film, my overall thoughts were “Man, those visuals were good but kinda rough for 60 million dollars.” Little did I know that they did those visual effects with just half of that number in the first film. When they actually got a 60 million dollar budget for Scorch Trials, they definitely used it impressively when showing the gang traversing through the Scorch, certain parts of the action sequences, the wide shots of the deserted cities, and the Cranks. The Cranks are this trilogy’s version of zombies and while I’m not big on computer generated zombies, they actually look better than World War Z’s 190 million dollar zombies.The Death Cure is no exception as, just like Scorch Trials, the visuals are top notch all across the board.
In the end, while walking out of the theater, I reflected on the experience of watching the Maze Runner series in such a short amount of time. It might be the only trilogy I’ve ever seen where the quality of the films have been this consistent. Each film has fun action, a talented cast, and great visuals. They also have the same writing and character shortcomings, culminating into films that are enjoyable and engaging but only to a certain point as the thematic and emotional cores of the films are very shallow. Overall, I enjoyed my time with the trilogy. They are perfect matinee material. While I’m not planning on re-watching it in the future, The Maze Runner: The Death Cure is a pretty good finale that ties up the trilogy well enough to make it better than most YA franchises.