Released: September 19th, 2014
Rated: PG-13
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas
Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Ki-hong Lee
Directed by: Wes Ball
Written by: Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers, T.S. Nowlin
Personal Bias Alert: haven’t read the book, likes a little crazy
7 of 10
We’ve
made it everyone. The post-blockbuster
dumping ground has passed, with smaller films like The Drop, The Skeleton Twins, and The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby:
Them slowly rolling out nationwide and the first serious attempt at
a quality wide release in over a month hitting theaters with The Maze Runner. I was anxious to get back to writing about
movies I enjoyed watching, and this YA novel adaptation didn’t disappoint.
The
film opens with the first thing our protagonist, Thomas, remembers: being hoisted up into a glade and greeted by
a group of teenage boys. He knows
nothing of his past, and the world he’s been lifted into is strange,
indeed. The group has the glade to live
in, and surrounding them is a giant maze filled with deadly creatures called
grievers. None of the boys know anything
about their past, why they’re there, or how to get out. They’ve assembled their own rules and seem to
be living relatively comfortably, until Thomas gets curious and upsets the
balance of their world.
This
opening is quickly established, and while it wastes a bit of time needlessly
dragging out its world building, it gets to the good stuff fast enough to be
forgiven. The middle section blossoms
into a great potboiler, with its self-contained world and the puzzle
surrounding it providing a captivating mystery.
Director Wes Ball, working on his first feature film, proves talented at
constructing action sequences, milking the small spaces of the maze for all
their worth.
Ball’s
talent is perhaps most evident in how well each individual scene works. Each one moves the plot forward, is filmed
with the right amount of style, and is performed well by all the actors. In the moment, the film builds tension and
makes you care about the characters, but when you pull back and think about it
as a whole things don’t quite add up. I
have the feeling that this movie was made by a lot of very talented filmmakers,
but they were saddled with adapting a YA novel whose story wasn’t constructed
with as much care as they’re bringing to the film.
That
being said, I’m not entirely down on the story it’s telling. Author James Dashner’s 1st and 2nd
acts are contained and interesting. It’s
not until the 3rd act, when the world starts to open up, that it
flirts with going off the rails. A few
too many things get thrown into the mix, and I was reminded of how I feel about
Donnie Darko, that the writer was
aimlessly throwing things at the wall, and it just so happened to come together
in an interesting, semi-coherent way. In
fact, this film went so weird that it sort of made me like it more. I warned you in my personal bias
section: I like a little crazy.
The Maze Runner boasts a unique setting,
but its story plays out in the familiar, hero’s journey-esque plotline we’ve
come to know and occasionally love. When
done with a certain level of skill, these series can blossom into some of the
best-selling franchises of our time (see Harry
Potter and The Hunger Games), and
while I don’t see this reaching those lofty levels, this opener does enough
things right to establish itself as a series with some legs.
Other
Notes:
Ø All
the characters are very familiar types, and the girl has nothing to do.
Ø You’re
going to see certain things coming, but so much happens at the end that I doubt
you’ll have it all figured out.
Ø When
the grievers were revealed to be half-machine, half-animal, I immediately
thought of the cylon raiders in Battlestar
Galactica.
Ø I
want to read the book now. That’s always
a good sign.
No comments:
Post a Comment