Film Review: ‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’ The third entry in the YA franchise gives the series a pr

Over the last several years or so, there has been many dystopian novels which have been turned into gigantic film playgrounds for visual, action-packed, and compelling storytelling. A rich, blend of worlds and in those worlds; titular, teen heroes facing impossible odds. First The Hunger Games, then Divergent and now The Maze Runner.

The Maze Runner was the first book in a trilogy written by the American author James Dashner. The book was first published in 2009. The similarities between The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Maze Runner are striking. Firstly, the setting is a post-apocalyptic world with an authoritarian regime, secondly a young teenage hero or heroine decides to fight against the rulers, and finally the heroes are being tested in a trial and have to fight for life or death.

The first Maze Runner film kicked off directly in the middle of the trial and as the title says, a seemingly unsolvable maze must be solved.

Thomas, the sixteen years old hero, remembers nothing about himself except his name. His memory has been wiped, as have all the memories of the Gladers, the teenagers who inhabit the maze. The only thing Thomas can recall is that he must solve the Maze to save himself and the other Gladers caught in it live on a farm in the middle of the maze, an area called the Glade.

Fast forward another film, and The Scotch Trials came around. This film sees Thomas, and the other escaped Gladers in the bigger world )or what’s left of it!) Thomas was sure when they escaped from the Maze, it would mean freedom for him and the Gladers.

But WICKED isn’t done yet. Phase Two has just begun. The Scorch.

In this installment, Thomas and his fellow Gladers search for clues about the dangerous and powerful organization that held them captive in the last movie, the World Catastrophe Killzone Division, or “WCKD.”

Their journey took them to the “Scorch,” a desolate landscape filled with new threats, terrors and obstacles. The biggest of these are “Cranks,” which are basically… zombies, but also the victims of a worldwide virus. With rumors of a resistance forming in the mountains, the Gladers decide to track them down in the hope of learning what WCKD has in store for them.

Throughout the books and the first two film, there are plenty of heart-warming deaths, galore, betrayals and staunch hatred and love…

will the third instalment bring the same intense, action-fuelled adrenaline as the previous films?

With popcorn and refreshments in-hand, Culturedemandsgeeks took our seats in the comfy red chairs of the local cinema for a feast of the next, highly anticipated film of the trilogy of MAZE RUNNER, though advertised as MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE (no Mazes, though!)

The film opens with a special effects ridden train hijack, by trucks and hidden hijackers though attacked by manned and armed drone-like flyers. Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) and Brenda (Rosa Salazar) chasing down a WCKD train holding a group of immunes, including Minho (Ki Hong Lee), the one they aim to rescue.

They are chased by a Berg, which lets Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and Vince (Barry Pepper) arrive, blowing up the connector rail that connects the train cars together. Brenda and Jorge get help from Frypan (Dexter Darden) before hijacking the Berg and return to the train, pulling the carriage full of immune with them, and Thomas, Vince and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Snagster) aboard.

They arrive at the rebel base (derelict port) only to discover, da, da, da…

Minho was in another carriage all along!

The one detail that Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his cohorts miss is getting the train car that contains their friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”).

Yet, they managed to free numerous immunes. (Wow! and that was the first ten full-throttle minutes!)

We pan over to WCKD’s headquarters, (hidden inside the last safe city) where they perform numerous tests on Minho to extract a serum from him. The thing that is supposed to make much sense is that the immunes have it in their blood to produce a vaccine that will save the world, or they turn into zombie-like beings. Yes, nothing much else is expected story-wise either, despite the fact that each film in the trilogy is based on a book.

Cue, cut back, and realizing his mistake, Thomas wants to try another rescue mission, even though it will take him and his friends into the heart of “the last city,” (above) the  last walled stronghold controlled by the wicked WCKD corporation, which has been attempting to use all of these untainted teens to wipe out the virus that’s turned most of the planet into half-dead bloodsuckers.

Eventually, they reach the Last City–after some rote zombie-fighting–with its gleaming skyscrapers surrounded by massive, heavily fortified walls that keep the filthy rabble living in shantytowns below from entering.

“The walls are new – I guess that’s WCKD’s answer to everything,” Esposito’s Jorge says.

Inside, Minho is suffering through WCKD’s various laboratory tortures, all carried out by a onetime Glader and previous Thomas love interest-turned-traitor, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario , aka, Skins fame and The pirates of the Caribbean 5!)

Struggling to find a way inside, Thomas and co fall in with a mysterious, gruesomely scarred resistance figure (Walton Goggins), as well as an unexpected returning character from the first film.

Once they finally breach the city walls, the film comes to life. While “Death Cure’s” sweeping aerial shots still rely on obvious computer graphics, the street-level city scenes are among the series’ most fully realized and effectively designed, from the propaganda videos broadcasting on electric billboards to the half-glimpsed arrests of the suspected infected on teeming street corners.

So too have the performances. Salazar once again proves herself to be an action hero in the making, given much more to do here than in “The Scorch Trials,” while Gillen hones his previously ridiculous antagonist into a properly ‘hissable’ villain.

The film’s main character in THE DEATH CURE and in the other 2 films is Thomas (Dylan O’Brien). Other characters like his love interest Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) and best mate Newt are also present.

SPOILER: Gally comes back into play (Will Poulter) from the first film, who is speared by Minho, but returns as a resistance fighter.

O’Brien – who, to be fair, was rarely asked to do more than look alternately determined and terrified as he dodged countless terrors in the previous films – has noticeably matured as an actor here, and he sells the film’s emotional beats with a good deal of charisma and bravado.

Brodie-Sangster has his moments (by the end of the film, you’ll be crying into the bottomless pit of popcorn too!), and Scodelario manages to get across a character of more complicated motivations than one usually sees in films of this ilk.

Ironically, this cast has finally started to gel into a group you wouldn’t mind spending time with, just as they’re preparing to say goodbye.

Well, better late than never.

“Death Cure” can certainly fall victim to overkill – the climax drags out several scenes longer than it has to. But we loved the thunderous sound design that grows with the action (the deadening with one explosion after another).

But damned if Ball doesn’t pull off some impressive firefights and last-minute escapes once the action gets humming. “The Maze Runner” was Ball’s first film, and his ability to craft comprehensible setpieces has steadily improved throughout the trilogy.

The film runs too long at 2 hours and 20 minutes. The film definitely could have been shortened. The special effects are impressive. This is director Ball’s third film in the MAZE RUNNER trilogy…

…and Wes Ball’s entire feature output has been these “Maze Runner” movies, and he definitely seems to have been learning on the job. He (and a no doubt very talented second unit) teams with editors Paul Harb (“The Expendables 3”) and Dan Zimmerman (“The Dark Tower”) and a top-flight visual effects crew to jolt the movie back to life every 15 or 20 minutes with another thrilling sequence.

A few niggling problems: That the entire operation involves the train, the plane and various feckless bad-guy soldiers winding up in exactly the right place at exactly the right time is mind-boggling!

But…

The world of Maze Runner contained big ideas, and the Death Cure,” gets it half right as an action movie. The stunts, the explosions and the chases are all exciting and elaborately mounted; there’s just not much of a plot as in the first two movies. A final, flippin’ excellent third entry in the ‘The Maze Runner’ saga.

4/5 STARS