The Maze Runner

Young adult novels have always been a thing. I remember a number of novels that I read when I was younger that we targeted towards young adults. The odd thing is, I grew up in a time before young adult novels was automatically thought to be equivalent with some kind of post-apocalyptic future and teenagers going out of their way to save the world from the evil government.

Its kind of becoming a problem to be honest.

And unfortunately, as much as I want to say that The Maze Runner has something going for it that isn't like all the other YA novels out there... well that was true, until the end. We'll get into it now.

The Maze Runner starts with our hero Thomas (played by Dylan O'Brien) being brought up by an elevator to an enclosed off area populated by a group of boys. Thomas cannot remember his name to start off but he's quickly assured that that's normal, his name will come back but everything else he'll just start afresh.

This group of boys live in what they call The Glade. Its surrounded by large walls that house what they call, The Maze. Every morning the doors of this Maze open and every night they close. Thomas figures out that these boys have been populating for 3 years and have set up their own little civilization. Everybody does their part, and only a select few go out into the Maze to try and make sense of it. The problem is, every night, the Maze changes and its never the same the next night... Sorta. That is one confusing thing off the bat, they say that the runners go off into the maze and try and map it out, however, how can they map it out if it changes every night?

Anyways, unanswered questions aside, (because my god there are more than a handful of them in this movie) Thomas is quickly introduced to this Lord of the Flies situations going on in the glade, but also quickly tears it down with things just not going the way they've always been going when he shows up.

I never read the book, I don't know how long Thomas is there in the book, but its kind of amazing that he gets here, and then three days later, like everything has gone to shit.

Its kind of hard to talk about this movie without giving away a bunch of spoilers. So I'll give you the highlights of what was good and what was bad in this film, give my overall thoughts, send the people who aren't interested in spoilers away, then talk spoilers.

Dylan O'Brien really impressed me in this film. I mean its not the greatest performance of all time, but I did feel like he was the person who was the most invested in all of this. I suppose the people who made this are thinking, we have to get someone who's going to be attractive and at least a little bit talented to be put up in the ranks of Jennifer Lawrence and that chick from Divergent, let's get someone with talent. And for the most part, he's pretty good.

O'Brien was one of the people who was rumored to be in line for the role of Spider-man and not that I've seen this, I actually really wish that he had be chosen. He's kind of a knock off Andrew Garfield but I feel like he could have been something really good. The truth is I only have seen one more more of his than Tom Holland and that's this movie so I can't really say, but I would have been fine if he had been chosen.

Everyone else... is really kind of indistinguishable and interchangeable.

I mean the only other person who is distinguishable is Thomas Brodie-Sangster... don't know who that is? He's that worthless guy who was with Bran for a season of Game of Thrones and the kid from Love Actually. The only reason I recognize him is because he's probably the most famous person there.

Everyone else tries to fall into a certain stereotype, like the chubby kid, or the black guy, or the bully, or the asian guy, but in the end, I didn't know any of their names. Everybody's got these weird names and then you've got Thomas... That was kind of confusing to me.

Oh... and there's a girl randomly (played by Kaya Scodelario). I mean... yeah she's attractive... but what does she do in this film? I'll give the answer. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The girl in this movie plays absolutely no part in the story, she's just eye candy. Maybe she'll have a bigger role in the later films, but for now, yeah, she does nothing.

The thing about this film is that it doesn't exactly feel like a complete movie. Even with the big reveal in the end that answers maybe one question out of the billion questions this movie brings up, this movie seems more like a prequel for something bigger. Because I'll be honest, this movie takes place over a very short time and very little happens.

The last thing I want to talk about is the design of the entire movie. Its an interesting design for the maze, and the monsters inside it.

I liked the design so much that I'm kind of disappointed this movie didn't get flushed out a little bit more. I know that there's not much in this maze, but I would have liked this world to be explored a little bit more. Maybe there's variations of challenges they have to go through in the maze, or maybe there are different monsters than just the robot spiders. There's unlimited possibilities that could happen here and I feel like they don't quite push it to where it totally could be in this film. And like I said, this movie seems like a story that could have been done in a short prequel film before the next movie that I'll be honest seems a lot more interesting.

And that's really why I watched this movie. I watched the trailer for the next movie. Put aside the fact that Little Finger from Game of Thrones (Aiden Gillen) is in the next film, its a totally new environment, totally different stakes and it seems like they're actually building up to something. I have no idea what, but it looks kind of interesting.

So is The Maze Runner bad? Well... no. Its not. I think its a fine enough movie. I'm not even going to waste time comparing this movie to the Hunger Games... because Hunger Games will win. I will say Divergent is better than this movie only because the first Divergent movie had a little bit more of a complete story. But that doesn't mean that there isn't promise in this franchise. It does distinguish itself, at least for now, from other YA novel adaptations and like I said, the only reason I saw this movie was because the trailer for the second one interests me more.

But those are my thoughts on The Maze Runner. What do you think? Comment and Discuss below. You can also give me your thoughts on the movie @cmhaugen24. Don't forget to send me your requests for future reviews. You can also follow me on Twitter to give updates on future movie news and reviews.

I'll leave the people leaving right now with this. This is the trailer for the second movie. It looks interesting, hopefully you'll have the same reaction I did.

Now, onto the spoilers of this movie.

Is everyone away? Are you sure? Alright.

So... was anybody else surprised on the fact that this is actually a zombie apocalypse film?

We spend the entire movie watching this weird Lord of the Flies remake where these boys are trying to figure out their way out of the Maze and solve the mystery of whats going out and why they're there, and when it all comes out, it turns out its a zombie apocalypse?

Which of course begs the question, what does putting them in a maze have anything to do with finding a cure but hey, whatever.

And that's the weird thing about this movie. They have a mediocre story with the boys in the Glade, but I think could have turned into something, that turns into a zombie apocalypse story that isn't explained enough in the end.

I said before, this movie seems like a prequel to a zombie story. And it just makes me think, why didn't they just start with the next story and cover all this silliness in The Glade in a flashback or something? I don't know how the whole story connects, maybe if I read the book it would make more sense, but I'm not gonna do that.

Oh yeah, let's talk about Patricia Clarkson in this film.

First off, she's obviously the President Snow or the Kate Winslet of this series. There of course needed to be that adult who is just the evil authority figure... because.

The weird thing is, she's already set up as the next President Snow just because she's the evil adult in a YA novel who wears white. She hasn't done anything, they don't even know what's totally going on, the audience doesn't totally know what's going on, but she's the evil one because she's the evil one. Which was pretty lame.

I know I'm putting a lot of faith into the second installment of this franchise but I'm just hoping that this is just a lame prequel to something that could actually be interesting... with Little Finger, and Gus from Breaking Bad in it...

The movie is very flawed. Its not nearly as good as the Hunger Games or Divergent but I will give it one more sequel only because I know the producers of this movie know they have a lot to compete with and if this next movie fails, they lose money.

But with all that knowledge, what do you think will happen with The Maze Runner. Do you think its going to continue and be as huge of a series as Divergent or Hunger Games or do you think it will fizzle out? Comment and Discuss below. Again, follow me on Twitter, give me your thoughts, send me requests. and get updates soon.

I'll leave you with this. Here's the Honest Trailer for this movie. A lot of times these trailers say a lot about the movie that I'm not able to explain all the time. Enjoy!