Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

Directed by: Wes Ball

Written by: T. S. Nowlin & James Dashner (novel)

Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, & Thomas Brodie-Sangster







I had a lot of hope for this movie.  But I ended up disappointed.

Let me explain.  I had watched The Maze Runner first and then read the books.  I'm on The Kill Order now.  So because of this, I, of course, want it to be exactly like the books.  Now if you've seen The Maze Runner and read the book, you know there are some differences.  Same goes for The Scorch Trials.  But this time there are major differences.

The thing that bugged me most about the film was that it did some sort of dance.  It would be just like the book and then BAM!  It would go back to being it's own thing and somehow circle it's way back around to the original story.  It was frustrating.

Before I saw this film, I was hyped up.  I re-watched The Maze Runner.  I watched interviews with the cast.  And the night before I could barely sleep.  I was that excited.  It felt like I was going to Disneyland.

But I'm not trying to say that the film was a huge disappointment.  Technically the film by itself was great.  There were no major plot holes and the cast was everything I hoped it would be.  But in comparison to the novel...there is no comparison.  The book is just better.

If you don't know, The Scorch Trials film picks up right where the first one left off.  The kids get rescued, but then find out that they were not really rescued at all.  They escape yadda yadda yadda and somehow end up in a whole new test, but instead of the maze, it's the scorch.  Relationships are tested, friends are lost, and a whole bunch of new information about WCKD comes to light.  So it follows the premise of the book, but it seemed to me that they combined the second and third one and decided to just make up a whole new third movie, if there is a third.  Does that make sense?

As for the film elements, there was a lot of great shots and the editing kept it up to speed for what the kids were going through.  The cranks were definitely something.  Great makeup and costume design. I was literally scared and thought that children should not see this.  The cranks' makeup made them look like zombies, but dysfunctional as if there was something more to them, which if you don't know is that they are not dead zombies, but living people who have developed the disease of the flare.

I did appreciate that even though much of the plot was different about the film, they mainly kept the character's true behaviors.  Teresa was Teresa and Thomas was still Thomas.  Their personalities were in sync with what was in the novel.

Overall what I'm trying to say is if you have only seen the movies, then this is 4 popcorns, because you aren't missing any of the information from the book because you don't know about it having not read it.  If you've read the books like me, this is 2 popcorns.  So I'll just aim for the middle and give it 3.