The Maze Runner (2014)
Directed by Wes Ball
A teenager with no memory of his past finds himself among a group of boys living in a walled enclosure surrounded by a massive, ever-changing maze. As he struggles to adapt to their rules and society, he begins to uncover clues that may lead to escape and the truth behind their confinement.
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27 films that influenced The Maze Runner
What critics say influenced The Maze Runner
The world of "The Maze Runner" is so small, especially compared to the vast universes conjured up by things like "The Hunger Games" or "Harry Potter" franchises, so those outside elements act as a way to broaden and expand what is a relatively contained environment.
The story clearly harkens back to dystopian classics such as Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm, but contemporary viewers will probably judge it only as a less sexy version of The Hunger Games.
It combines elements of “Lord of the Flies” with the Minotaur and Orpheus myths, but it plays as something closer to “The Hunger Games” experienced through a dissociative fog.
The inspiration for and the aspirations of the Baton Rouge-shot " The Maze Runner " are so simple and so transparent that both can be summed up in but three words: "The Hunger Games.
Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen is a compelling heroine in The Hunger Games , while Divergent , though a mixed bag, has a lead to root for in Shailene Woodley's Tris Prior.
"The Maze Runner," adapted by scribes Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin from the 2007 novel by James Dashner (the first in a trilogy), seems to share a closer kinship to William Golding's 1954 classic "Lord of the Flies" than to most of the modern fantasy YA book-to-screen upstarts.
The Maze Runner can be broken down as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies by way of Lindelof and Cuse’s Lost.
Yes, there are strong touches here of the classic film “Lord of the Flies,” based on the William Golding novel, because there is that concept of young people creating a society out of nothing.
Director Wes Ball's ambitious pitch for The Maze Runner is Lord of the Flies meets Lost - unfortunately the end result is all high-concept and no trousers, lacking the thematic weight of William Golding's yarn or the compelling intrigue of ABC's primetime hit.
"The Maze Runner," adapted by scribes Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin from the 2007 novel by James Dashner (the first in a trilogy), seems to share a closer kinship to William Golding's 1954 classic "Lord of the Flies" than to most of the modern fantasy YA book-to-screen upstarts.
The Maze Runner can be broken down as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies by way of Lindelof and Cuse’s Lost.
Debut feature director Wes Ball won the job solely off the back of his attention-grabbing CGI short Ruin, in which a nameless protagonist is chased across a sprawling sci-fi landscape by a helijet, coming across like a next-gen videogame version of Spielberg’s Duel .
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You're thinking of Mazes and Monsters, though Dylan O'Brien does kind of resemble a young Pardieu .
O’Brien, who plays a modern incarnation of Stiles on MTV’s Teen Wolf, does a nice job in the lead.
The young cast is for the most part an agreeable bunch: O’Brien, who cut his teeth on MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” and Scodelario, who was in the original British version of “Skins,” go through their paces efficiently enough, and though Poulter is stuck in a one-note angry-young-man persona that doesn’t give him room to build on what he managed in “Son of Rambow” and “We’re the Millers,” he does what the role demands of him well enough.
The film’s lead, Dylan O’Brien, star of the MTV series “Teen Wolf,” gets his big screen comeuppance (he had a supporting role in last year’s “ The Internship “) as a frightened young lad in a locked elevator cage going up, without a clue how he got there, and without his memory.
This aim is bolstered by a surprisingly strong cast, led by Teen Wolf ’s Dylan O’Brien, who charges Thomas with a restless, intense charm that drives the movie’s sense of restless wanderlust hiding beneath the survivalist structure.
That's not Dylan O'Brien's ("Teen Wolf") fault.
In particular, they streamline the book’s interminable opening, in which newcomer Thomas (Dylan O’Brien, star of TV’s Teen Wolf) asks more frustrated questions than a secondary character on Lost, and gets fewer answers, with less reason.
He’s quickly indoctrinated by a trio of helpful mates: spiritual leader Alby (Aml Ameen), cheeky Brit Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, the lovesick kid from “Love Actually”) and the cherubic Chuck (Blake Cooper, channeling a young Jonah Hill).
Leader Alby (Aml Ameen of Brit TV series The Bill) and lieutenant Newt (elfin Thomas Brodie-Sangster, all grown up since Love Actually) help the confused newbie, dubbed “greenie” by the guys, find his feet.
Unfortunately, Scodelario, so good recently in Wuthering Heights, does get lost; she does what she can, but her character seems to be waiting around for the sequel to completely reveal herself.
Then there's Scodelario, a nuanced young actress ( Wuthering Heights ) who's wasted on the tiny role of Teresa, the only girl ever to be sent to the Glade (this isn't Peeta and Katniss or Tris and Four).
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Yes, it's painfully obvious the film, based on James Dashner's popular fantasy novels, borrows from "Lord of the Flies" ... and "The Terminator" ... and maybe even "Alien," and any film in which humans are unwittingly used in supersized experiments.
In perhaps the most memorable modern approximation, "The Shining," a hedge maze is employed for the film's snowy climax, in order to trap another deadly monster – an alcoholic author played by Jack Nicholson.