The Maze Runner is kind of a mess. It has a fantastic premise and background, but the teenybopper themes permeate the whole film and really hold it back.
The story is that of group of teenage boys living in “the glade,” the center of a large maze from which no one has escaped. They don’t know why they are there or who put them there, all having had their memory erased before waking up one day in the glade. Every day the door to the maze opens and runners go in to map it out, but they have to return before the door closes at night, as monsters called grievers haunt the maze then. The plot revolves around Thomas, the newest member of the group, who pushes the laws they’ve been living by in a relentless pursuit of finding the answers behind it all.
Sounds great right? Unfortunately it’s just not a great film. There is a lot of overly dramatic pauses, right out of the Twilight series. The acting overall is subpar, and whole sequences don’t make any sense. When there is a fairly large group of adventurous youth, why is everyone content to live in the glade until Thomas arrives? Why does the film try to create a huge, gutwrenching scene when a character dies near the end, when others have died left and right throughout with nary a whisper? When all is revealed in the end, it just opens up more questions, that I guess you have to wait for the sequel to find out. Fans of the teen book series this film is based on may love it, but I think most adults will do what I did and count the minutes till the end of this labyrinth.
Jons Movie Takes 