Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)
Directed by Wes Ball
Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.
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What critics say influenced Maze Runner: The Death Cure
Yet unlike the “Divergent” series, which was undone by an increasingly generic vibe — hope you haven’t been holding your breath for the scuttled feature resolution, “Ascendant” — O’Brien and the gang get a shot at redeeming their franchise.
I can’t say the delay hurt the film in any noticeable way, as this series, for all its visual flourish and visceral action theatrics has always tilted more in the director of Divergent and its ilk than it does The Hunger Games.
Unlike The Hunger Games or Divergent, a monstrous autocracy is not responsible for all the world’s ills.
Despite the monster success of “The Hunger Games,” most of the follow-ups have fallen apart along the way (a la “Divergent”) or never really gotten off the ground in the first place (“I Am Number Four;” “The 5th Wave;” “The Mortal Instruments;” etc.).
That one of the most charitable things one could say about Maze Runner: The Death Cure is that at least it finished out the trilogy plan suggested by its source material, unlike the Divergent series, is hollow praise if ever there was such a thing.
Rookie director Wes Ball delivered a movie that brought to mind “Lord of the Flies” as much as “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” or “The Giver.”
I can’t say the delay hurt the film in any noticeable way, as this series, for all its visual flourish and visceral action theatrics has always tilted more in the director of Divergent and its ilk than it does The Hunger Games.
Unlike The Hunger Games or Divergent, a monstrous autocracy is not responsible for all the world’s ills.
But following nearly a decade of YA novel adaptations, ranging from Harry Potter, to The Hunger Games, and then through the Twilight/Divergent phase, we’ve seen all that the “band of rebels going up against a dystopian power in the future” has to offer.
Despite the monster success of “The Hunger Games,” most of the follow-ups have fallen apart along the way (a la “Divergent”) or never really gotten off the ground in the first place (“I Am Number Four;” “The 5th Wave;” “The Mortal Instruments;” etc.).
Like The Hunger Games , Divergent , The Giver and more, the saga — adapted from James Dashner’s YA novels — features teens running around in a barren dystopia and trying to rebel against a sinister organization, i.e., “WCKD.”
But try sitting through “The Giver” or “I Am Number Four.”
Rookie director Wes Ball delivered a movie that brought to mind “Lord of the Flies” as much as “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent,” or “The Giver.”
(How many remember The Giver , also 2014, or the previous year's Ender's Game ?).
Ball’s action sequences have a tangible, accessible quality about them, which is especially true in his doozy of an opening sequence: a 10-minute car chase/train robbery across the desert that’s got a grit, intensity and rough-hewn aesthetic reminiscent of “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
The sequence plays out as part Mad Max: Fury Road car chase, part Fast and the Furious heist; it gets the blood pumping from the outset, and sets up the tone for this final instalment.
The opening action sequence, a train attack reminiscent of moments from Fast Five and Mad Max: Fury Road , is very much in the spirit of this newest and improved Maze Runner : fast-paced, heavily indebted to other and better movies, and pretty enjoyable.
This is no Mad Max: Fury Road, but anyone jonesing for a new Fast & Furious movie could do worse.
“The Death Cure” opens with a spectacularly staged train rescue indebted to “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
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Inside the Last City is a bit Blade Runner meets RoboCop with a dash of Gattaca, lots of neon and glass… and yet not sinister but kinda cool.
At 2 hours and 22 minutes, though, Death Cure really does drag, as the gang constantly rescues and re-rescues one another across Mad Max , and then Blade Runner backdrops.
The film draws its sci-fi tropes from everything from Blade Runner to The Road Warrior to 28 Days Later to Final Fantasy VII, but at teen-movie scale, where there’s a ceiling to the violence and the cursing (boy, do these kids like to say “shit,” though), and there’s something delightfully accessible about it all.
So I missed and then willfully skipped the second film— The Scorch Trials , it was called—and now, checking back in for The Death Cure , the concluding installment of this franchise, I discover that the story has taken a hard left turn into an action-crazed Mad Max universe, with a pit stop in Blade Runner -ville.
The Death Cure, the final adaptation of James Dashner’s dystopian Maze Runner novels, starts with a combination train robbery/prison break sequence that recalls not one, but two set-pieces from the first act of Fast & Furious 5 – or Fast Five as it’s known outside the UK.
The opening action sequence, a train attack reminiscent of moments from Fast Five and Mad Max: Fury Road , is very much in the spirit of this newest and improved Maze Runner : fast-paced, heavily indebted to other and better movies, and pretty enjoyable.
All six are engaged in a daring train heist (because you can’t go wrong if you stick close to Fast Five ) in order to free the captured Minho (Ki Hong Lee).
The rescue mission that opens The Death Cure, which will surely give déjà vus to Fast Five fans (or those who have seen the director’s studio magnet of a short), and a Swordfish-esque bus sequence see Ball’s vision—full of thrilling kineticism and careful attention to detail—firing on all cylinders.
Take note, Eragon’s Stefen Fangmeier, Maleficent’s Robert Stromberg, or today’s Michael Bay.
They are basically zombies, but more of the 28 Days Later variety versus a Night of the Living Dead.
Thomas (O’Brien) is the leader of a small group of teens with a special immunity to an infection called the Flare, which has turned the majority of the human race into “28 Days Later”-style fast zombies called Cranks (as opposed to lumbering, “Night of the Living Dead”-style zombies).
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His pacing casually unites a number of disparate elements: a noseless Walton Goggins; an ineffective border wall; the former little kid from Love Actually ; a love story so perfunctory that it’s almost respectable.
At least some of Thomas' friends, such as Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster of Love Actually, who looks like a Dickensian orphan) and kick-ass Brenda (Rosa Salazar), bring more quirk and charisma to the table.
Thomas (Dylan O’Brien as the saga’s blank hero) and his pals Newt (“Love Actually” peewee Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Frypan (Dexter Darden) decide to break into the walled fortress and free the children from the evil clutches of the people who are trying to… uh… save what’s left of the human race.
Ever since Jennifer Lawrence called time on Katniss, “Divergent” has fizzled out rather ignominiously; “Ender’s Game” and “The 5th Wave” proved to be nonstarters; and after a delayed production that saw series lead Dylan O’Brien injured in an on-set accident, “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” the third and final entry in Fox’s adaptations of James Dashner’s books, finally arrives this month with relatively little fanfare.
(How many remember The Giver , also 2014, or the previous year's Ender's Game ?).