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Inevitably, after the runaway success of The Hunger Games series, it was only a matter of time before a myriad of copycat young adult dystopian fiction found its way on to bookshelves around the world.
Even more predictably, those releases which find moderate success are snapped up by Hollywood, fronted by a cookie cutter and impossibly good-looking lead and then lapped up by the legion of adoring post-pubescents.
Thus, we have The Maze Runner, the film adaption of the 2009 James Dashner novel centred on a young man named Thomas (O’Brien), who wakes up in a rusty elevator suffering from amnesia.
There to meet him is a community of similarly-aged boys called ‘Gladers’, residents of ‘The Glade’, a grassy and wooded area at the centre of a giant concrete maze.
After an exposition-heavy opening where the community’s leader Alby (Ameen) explains how one new boy per month is introduced to the group and that the community is entirely self-sufficient, we are introduced to the ‘Runners’.
These are the fittest and most able Gladers, who are selected to run through the Maze every day to map it out and try to find the exit. They must return by nightfall, since the Maze doors close at dusk and vicious and deadly mechanical creatures named ‘Grievers’ roam around at night.
Typically, our protagonist is the curious type and can’t resist the allure of the maze. The arrival of the group’s first female, Teresa – who apparently recognises Thomas – further complicates matters as the Gladers try to formulate a plan to escape.
I’ll answer the most burning question straight away … No. it isn’t as fun or engaging as The Hunger Games and especially not as thought-provoking as my personal cult favourite Battle Royale. However, The Maze Runner certainly has its merits and has the potential to turn into yet another phenomenon.
The biggest gun in this adaptation’s arsenal is the acting. The film is very well-cast with solid and believable performances from the actors. Some characters, notably Alby and his second-in-command Newt, are essentially the designated info-dumps, but they manage to extract empathy from the viewer when needed.
The visuals are breathtaking, with the giant labyrinth brought to life thanks to spot-on special effects and inspired set design. Often with grand sci-fi backdrops, the surroundings are so obviously fake and thus don’t convey the sense of scale that is necessary to make the protagonists’ plight seem terrifying.
At night, the maze takes a further twist as the horrifying Grievers stalk every corner, with the film incorporating elements of horror eerily reminiscent of the raptors-in-the-kitchen scene from Jurassic Park.
The mix of fast-paced action with slower atmospheric moments (accentuated by a strong musical score that competently conveys the mood the film is trying to portray) keeps viewers gripped and never quite sure what is going to happen next. Considering this is director Wes Ball’s debut, it is indicative of a promising career.
Unfortunately, the movie undoes a lot of its good work in the final act by switching to ‘sequel setup mode’ too abruptly. With the book series being a trilogy, it was always a guarantee that if The Maze Runner performed well at the box office then the rest of the series would get a green light. Indeed, the second instalment has already been given a release date next year.
It is all well and good leaving a few threads open for the sequels, but not at the expense of neatly tying up the individual chapter. There’s not enough resolution and the pace slows considerably to throw more information at us. Considering the opening act spewed a lot of baffling terminology and explanations, it’s even more galling.
Furthermore, Teresa is the one weak link in the cast as the token female whose purposes sadly seems to be exactly that … representing the fairer sex in a male-dominated movie. Her function in the plot is supposedly to create intrigue about her recognising Thomas, but this never quite catches fire. To top it off, her American accent seems incredibly forced and ends up being a distraction.
Overall, The Maze Runner manages to carve its own identity in an over-stuffed genre, and taken on its own it is a highly watchable and enjoyable movie let down only by a poor and sequel-focussed ending. Not a-maze-ing then, but definitely recommended if a trip to the cinema tickles your fancy this week.
* Showing in Cineco, Seef I, Seef II
