Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Released:  September 18^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Dylan O’Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Aiden Gillen, Jacob Lofland, Barry Pepper, Rosa Salazar, Lili Taylor, Alan Tudyk, Patricia Clarkson

Directed by:  Wes Ball

Written by:  T.S. Nowlin

Personal Bias Alert:  liked The Maze Runner, likes Y.A. dystopias

4.9 of 10

            Another week brings another Y.A. adaptation trying to stretch its legs.  While the genre seems to be winding down, Maze Runner was late to the game, releasing the first film nearly a year to the day before The Scorch Trials.  That opener was a rough but interesting potboiler that held itself on the rails until its bewildering third act.  In this second installment, the young filmmakers helming the series must open up the world even more, and instead of finding solid footing they only slide further down the rabbit hole.

            Having escaped the maze, the surviving Gladers (yes, still a dumb name) must elude the clutches of WKCD and figure out how to survive the crumbling world around them.  Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), and company are all targets, we find out, because of their immunity to the virus that has decimated society.  Those infected are essentially zombies, and the mysteriously powerful WKCD believes that a cure can be found in the blood of the immune.  What precisely WKCD is remains a mystery.  Is it a powerful biomedical company?  An evil organization?  A branch of the government?  It could be argued that this isn’t revealed to the audience because Thomas and the other Gladers don’t know the answer, but the multitude of incongruous mysteries that keep stacking up in this series makes a poorly thought-out plot the more likely scenario.  Without giving away what happens in Scorch Trials, it infuriatingly never explains what the hell putting a bunch of kids in a maze accomplished.  In fact, if WKCD only wants the teens in order to develop a cure, taking a whole bunch of them away from your scientists and putting them in mortal danger seems like the last thing you’d want to do.  But there are hints in Scorch Trials that something much larger is going on.  It’s a distinct possibility that all the odd plot points will be explained by some big plot twist in the third film, but any twist that might be on the horizon will be lessened by how muddled its buildup has become.

            Scorch Trials is essentially a chase film, with the Gladers running from civilization pocket to civilization pocket with WKCD nipping at their heels.  These new encounters allow fresh blood to join their dour band, but the speed with which Scorch Trials moves from place to place never allows them to feel fully integrated into the group.  The background players fade into a faceless pack running behind Thomas, Teresa, and Minho, and even the main player’s stories feel simultaneously trite and aimless.  Thomas becomes the de facto leader of the group, but it’s clear that he’s making up the plan as he goes.  Without any clear goal, the film devolves into an episodic series of action sequences that, despite being well staged, never have any meaning.  Due to some heavy foreshadowing, the fate of two of the characters are sealed early on, and the familiar cliffhanger ending makes the whole thing go out with a whimper instead of a bang.

            The smartest move this series made was retaining director Wes Ball, who despite never making any other feature-length films has an incredible eye for visceral action.  The first film featured a handful of tense maze sequences, and Scorch Trials opens up into a never-ending play land of dystopian action.  He’s still hamstrung by a tired and repetitive plot, but Ball never lets the action sequences degrade into such cookie-cutter material.  He plays with the lighting, colors, and sound design to construct some truly terrifying sequences, and one shot in particular is an attention-grabbing moment of quiet despair.  Maze Runner is shaping up to be quite a feather in Ball’s cap, and hopefully one day he is able to find material that matches his extraordinary talent.

            As with The Maze Runner, what The Scorch Trials gets right can largely be traced back to Ball.  The material he’s working with simply isn’t that great, and the young cast is nothing more than a competently likable group of actors.  None of it is particularly terrible, but Scorch Trials remains a definite step back for the series as a whole.

Other Notes:

Ø  I have to mention how delighted I am by Minho.  He’s essentially Thomas’s right hand; a smart, strong guy that’s a straight-up action hero.  He also just so happens to be of Asian descent, which makes the character a rarity in Hollywood.

Ø  I still don’t feel much chemistry between O’Brien and Scodelario.

Ø  “I’m tired of running.”  Good, because I’m tired of watching you run.

Fresh

Released:  August 24^th, 1994

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Miramax

Starring:  Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, N’Bushe Wright

Directed by:  Boaz Yakin

Written by:  Boaz Yakin

Personal Bias Alert:  likes surprises, likes Giancarlo Esposito

7.5 of 10

            Fresh startles from beginning to end.  It’s an unusual story with an unusual protagonist:  a 12-year-old kid from New York City who’s already knee-deep in the drug business, but he’s neither a thug nor an idiot.  In fact, he’s a rather shrewd boy, and it’s easy to imagine how he got to the film’s starting point.  There was certainly some surveying, an evaluation of his environment and the possible exits routes, and a decision to go with the most consistent path.  That drugs happen to be his ticket out isn’t his fault; American society doesn’t give a poor African-American kid many viable options, and he handles his chosen occupation with such professionalism that any business owner would be impressed, not least of all the local drug kingpins that employ him.  Perhaps it’s this trademark approach that landed him the nickname Fresh, or maybe it’s just his young face.  Either way, his bosses see a bright future for the boy, but he envisions an even brighter one for himself.

            Sean Nelson, who couldn’t have been much older than his character when filming, pulls off Fresh’s self-confident intelligence without making him precocious.  It’s a fine line, but an imperative one for the film to get right.  For Fresh to live the way he does, he must be seen as an adult amongst adults, not a child tagging along.  His friend Chuckie (Luis Lantigua) falls well short of this line, and the film reveals how badly things can go for a kid in this world.  No, this isn’t the kind of movie that flinches.  The darkness of Fresh’s environment is on full display, made all the more disturbing by its reality, its lack of exaggeration.  This was New York City in the early ‘90s, with the minorities clustered to the side and left to bear the brunt of the raging crack epidemic.  Fresh’s involvement in the business doesn’t mean he approves of using drugs for reasons that become starkly clear, and this dichotomy is what drives the film to its unexpected conclusion.

            Where the film does end up going isn’t for me to reveal; that’s something best left for you to experience.  It’s remarkable, looking back, how you don’t see it coming.  The foreshadowing is staring you in the face, but there’s this boy there, too, in nearly every frame.  His soft face lowers your expectations a bit, making the film’s unraveling all the more thrilling.  However, it’d be wrong to say that the ending entirely makes sense.  It’s strays a bit from the rest of the film’s gritty realness, employing movie moments to make the whole thing work, but that’s a forgivable sin when you factor in how far Fresh takes you.  There has to be some hope at the end of all this grimness, and the world wasn’t exactly set up to give him a way out.  A bit of fancy at the end, as long as it continues to hold its character’s responsible for their actions, can serve as a kind of pointed catharsis.  It gives us a place we would like to get to, but also emphasizes how far we still need to go to get there.

            This is an impressively smart film for Boaz Yakin’s first outing as writer and director, but there are several small failings that gnaw away at the film’s greatness.   Most notable are some dreadful performances by the young cast members, who’s forced line delivery and lack of presence sticks out when compared to the superbly executed scenes between Nelson and the adult cast (which includes the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and Giancarlo Esposito).  The bare-bones editing is another major sign of Yakin’s freshness, feeling more in line with television’s churned out simplicity than with film’s more stylish approach.  Other small technicalities build on this lack of flair, making the film slightly stilted in a way that doesn’t enhance the overall tone.  With the exception of the kid acting, these aren’t major concerns, but having several off-kilter elements does slowly add up to a less-than-perfect film.

            In spite of these problems, Fresh is still well worth seeking out.  It’s got a true sense of existing in the real world, where outcomes for even a smart kid like Fresh could take you in radically different directions, and the mystery of where it’s all going is a thrilling one to see play out.

Other Notes:

Ø  I must give an animal abuse warning for those who are sensitive to such things.

Ø  The music was mixed rather loud in the Netflix version I was watching.

Ø  Even in this age of antiheros, Fresh is probably one of the youngest ones you can find.