'Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials'

In cinemas September 10th!

I, like most people, remember the first Maze Runner as a fairly decent addition to the teen angst 
sci-fi genre with a bizarre nonsensically stupid ending, so the hope here is that the sequel reconciles that dilemma. 

‘The Scorch Trials’ picks up almost immediately after the first movie with the survivors of the maze aboard the rescue chopper as it arrives at the mysterious base of their rescuers where they are taken in by the highly suspicious rebellion group. All is not what it seems, otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a story, and our plucky gang are forced to flee into The Scorch (the general term for, well, the planet I guess) in search of a better option. Or something, they don’t really have a plan.

In answer to my first question, no the nonsensical ending from the first movie doesn’t get any more logical. Spoilers for the first movie here (but this is a sequel so what do you expect), you might remember it ended with possibly the least logical explanation for the events of the maze there could be, the sun had scorched the Earth and people had turned into raving zombies and the maze was designed to help somehow... Except then an almost meaningless twist, that happened way too suddenly, meant that maybe this wasn’t true and we were left with a big ‘huh?’ to deal with. 

Tragically this raving gibberish turns out to be true, the world has turned into the ‘Resident Evil: Extinction’ and WCKD have taken up the most bizarre methodology they could think of to try and combat the problem, and I’m afraid I couldn’t get past this. Much like the first movie it largely works really well, the 'Mad Max' meets 'Fallout' landscape is stunningly realised and the pockets of “civilisation” the kids encounter are all varied and interesting. The problem is we are stuck with what is still ultimately a very stupid plot hanging over the proceedings like a tidal wave threatening to drown the movie under it’s nonsense. 

WCKD are searching for a cure for the zombie apocalypse but don’t know how to do that without being incredibly evil, for unclear reasons. The best way to find said cure is to torment some children, trick them into submission and slowly ferry them to their doom, again for unclear reasons. The rest of the world are against WCKD’s search for the cure despite not having a better plan. It’s just … dumb.

Weirdly this film is also a total left turn from the first, they really have next to nothing in common besides apparently taking place in the same universe, and much like the first the premise, characters and beats of the story work great it’s just the story itself that let’s it down. But it means that I can’t honestly say that if you liked the first you’ll like this one because they’re very different creatures. 

I mean I know who the heroes and villains of this story are I’m just not sure why I’m supposed to care. WCKD are evil, sure, but what’s the point? A villain with essentially noble intentions is always interesting but there’s a limit to my suspension of disbelief and WCKD are at best idiots. 

I think it’s a damning indictment of the series that I’ve now seen two films and I wouldn’t lose any sleep if I missed the next one. I can recommend this film for it’s scenery and world building but I just wish we had a better story to explore this world with and ultimately I was bored. Not for me.

Review by Kristian Mitchell-Dolby.

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