Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the second movie in The Maze Runner trilogy after the first movie, The Maze Runner. Just like the other instalments, this movie is directed by Wes Ball but written solely by T.S. Nowlin this time. The 2015 production from the Gotham Group, Temple Hill Entertainment and TSG Entertainment stars most of the same people, with some new additions. Cast members include Dylan O’Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Rosa Salazar, Aidan Gillen and Giancarlo Esposito. The movie scores a 6.3/10 on IMDb and received a 43 Metascore.
The Story
After the first movie, viewers are left with a ton of questions. We don’t get many answers this time around either though. The movie’s start seems to show us that the children were voluntary given to WCKD, why in the world would parents do that? We do find out that there is still plenty of life left outside the maze, which, for me, kind of diminished the importance of the maze. Especially the fact that there were multiple mazes.
What exactly has happened to the outside world? Everything turned into a desert but still, corporations like WCKD were able to huge mazes across the area. Supplies like food and water don’t seem to be a problem as we see that our main protagonists have no problem whatsoever with it. The WCKD facility is on 24 hours lockdown but outside, in the city, people are just living freely without problems? They sure seem to party a lot, while that would be a great moment for a virus to spread.
Why is the city destroyed also stirred me. The sun got a bit too hot and there was a virus that turned people mad. I don’t see how any of those two destroyed every building in a huge city. Of course, the infected could’ve destroyed some stuff but then other people would just kill them right, no reason to let them destroy everything.
When we learn that there are more mazes, all filled with plenty of immunes, I got wondering. What made our main guys special? Oh, and a girl of course. I still don’t know why there was only one girl in their maze as it seems that the other mazes had plenty. The movie also continued where its predecessor left off, with painfully obvious foreshadowing. In the very first scene, when you see Janson, you already know that WCKD is not the good guy.
The pacing in this movie is also all over the place. Only 20 minutes in, our protagonist has already found the immunes body while their blood was being drained. After we already met a new character, who already knows enough to be a plot device for our protagonist. The story seems to skip over important parts of the explanation while other less important pieces are explained in full detail.
The story is also too inconsistent to have my full attention. They walked across a desert without any water. Exhausted they fall asleep, only to be waked up by a storm at which point they suddenly have enough energy to run like a few kilometres at full speed, outrunning lighting. Somehow, a few scenes later, our group is back in the city, how did they cross that distance so fast without any problems this time? Also, where were the infected during the second and third night?
In the end, the first movie was a setup for the second movie with the second movie being a setup for the third.
The Characters
The second movie in this trilogy is just as incapable of creating a character arc as the first movie. There still isn’t a single character who has some sort of growth. The relationships between the characters are just soo vague. For example, Aris just joins their little group without ever introducing himself to anyone other than Thomas?
We get a single death of our main group this time around after we got two in the first movie. Winston kills himself after being infected. Wait who was Winston? I already forgot because he hasn’t done a single thing of importance or had any normal dialogue. Just like Newt, Minho and Frypan. The movie fails horribly to get the viewer to connect to these characters, making their deaths insignificant.
Also, Minho, who would’ve thought turning on the lights in a building, possibly filled with infected, supposedly surrounded by WCKD, would cause any problems at all. But it doesn’t matter because hiding almost anywhere should provide our characters with enough plot armour to survive.
The Production
While I was amazed at the looks of the maze in the first movie, this second movie offers little better than that. The broken city is well-made but not unlike anything I’ve seen before. Dialogue is still nothing great while the base blowing up was a cool sight. The few infected whom Brenda and Thomas encountered in the tunnels were amazing looking but most of the other infected looked different. Also, where is the maze in a maze runner movie?